Steep Downhill and you need to downshift

It's a pity industry still puts money before our safety! Back in naziland Europe it's different where you trade some freedom (and cash) for mandatory safety, still there's no reason why these things can't be adopted here, especially since we can have long nose trucks here they should be safer but the opposite is true!

 

I'm not so sure that was a run away. There was no brake smoke when he went by the camera truck. And yes some kind of cab crash standards will never happen here. The big corporations won't stand for it.

 

Cab overs in Europe are completely different to the ones here, less restrictions on weight means they can be built heavier and safer, they ride much better than conventionals here, most don't have a dog house and the engine is barely audible from inside the cab and there's no heat transfer which I know dogged drivers from the cab over era here.

Anyways safety is what we are talking about and this is a demonstration of standard brakes on a naziland truck, they combines discs with EBS not to be confused with ABS, sorry for the German ! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL7A6Fb8AGw&feature=youtube_gdata_player


Retarders are almost all hydraulic, stopping force is greater than a jake but crucially you can press the clutch and change gears without the truck picking up speed as it pulls from the rear of the gearbox , I said synchromesh gears solely because you can't miss a gear, even a rookie, it's impossible !

 

Good point, but I wonder if the brakes had overheated so much the drums could have expanded away from the pads or reddened so much there's no smoke ??? Just thinking out loud, drum brakes were largely phased out in naziland before my time .

 

I'm sorry but the dude was going to fast for the curve. No matter when you hit your brakes. You have a top heavy load gravity and inertia will do what it does.

 

I just watched this on a bigger screen for the time, although I'd seen it before on the phone. I'd never noticed before , but he likely sideswiped the truck with the video. If you watch closely, what does him in is he swerves left away from the other truck, then swerves right, overcorrecting; and then jerked left. The trailer was sliding (0:10) just before he hits the brakes, and the push back by the truck was all it took to send them over. It would likely still been a wreck, as the trailer would have slid to the shoulder, but they'd have been further around the bend and might have slid down the straight stretch of road instead of into the trees.

Edit: the other driver could and should have stopped before entering the debris field.

 

Well, I'm not a big fan of the STAB and release method. Here's why. Anytime you use your brakes you generate heat. How much heat is a function of several factors, the leading of which is the amount of pressure you apply. Now, I can't throw exact numbers out but let's use a hypothetical situation. Say you hit your brakes for 80 PSI for 5 seconds, then release for 5 seconds, then apply again for 5 seconds etc. Now let's also assume that whatever heat you build up is more or less completely lost, just for the sake of argument. The method I generally use when braking on downhills is less pressure but over a longer period of time. If you instead use say 40PSI of pressure you could brake for twice as long and lose the same amount of speed, and generate the same amount of brake heat. The biggest difference is that you aren't losing that speed in a shorter time span. Remember there are vehicles behind you. They may not be able to shed speed as fast as you can for a number of different reasons, so the smoother you can make your own speed the better it is for everyone else.

I know someone is going to say "Ya, but if I use half the pressure I won't lose speed at all, I'll still gain it!" Well driver, if that is true then you are prolly in the wrong gear to begin with. STAB that sucker and drop a gear.

As for how to downshift on a downgrade, don't be afraid to over 1500RPM if you must. I'd rather run an engine up a little further then I normally do then stay on the brakes any longer then I have to. This has the additional benefit of putting the engine at higher RPM in the lower gear anyway, which means the jakes will work even better.

 

I'd be thinking by stabbing the brake ( shorter than 5 secs ) you'd give them a chance to cool !

 

Well I know which hills I need to downshift, but the easiest thing to do is engage your jake brake every time you see a steep incline sign. Some signs out west have 25 mph downhill limits with plenty of warnings beforehand. Sometimes the challenge is the idiot trucker in front of me riding his brakes to maintain 30 mph in a 70 mph zone on a steep incline while I am fully loaded. That happens a lot on I64 going east in WV.

 

Put it in the big hole and let it roll!!! Oh, and don't forget the 4 ways for safety....