Steep Downhill and you need to downshift

My jakes stopped working, and I had to go down a few mountains without them, and I used the stab breaking in low gear normally 7th or 8th depending on how heavy I was. I used the rpm gage as my instrument to tell me when to break and when to release. I believe I was breaking when it got to about 23 to 2400 and would slow it down to about 1900 then release and repeat until I got down the bottom of the hill. Never had a problem with the brakes getting hot. Went down some pretty nice grades in Ca, TN, Va, AZ, and NC.

Normally when brakes are working I can go down those grades in 9th or 8th and never touch the brake. Just play around with the low med and high range of the jake.

 

The guy driving the truck in this video only had his CDL for 9 days, per CHP accident report. His trainer was in the bunk sleeping at the time of accident. They were hauling 43,000 lbs of recycled plastic headed to Sacramento. They didn t find the trainer until the following day. He was underneath all the wreckage

 

The guy driving the truck in this video only had his CDL for 9 days, per CHP accident report. His trainer was in the bunk sleeping at the time of accident. They were hauling 43,000 lbs of recycled plastic headed to Sacramento. They didn t find the trainer until the following day. He was underneath all the wreckage. The driver simply missed a gear going downhill and couldn t recover the gear and took that curve over 70 mph

 

Tell your brother to go back and read the cdl manual. It clearly says to NEVER use the trolley brake while driving. It is like the tail wagging the dog.


In the video it looks to me like the driver wasn't in any gear. He probably tried to downshift after he got going too fast. The only other explanation I can think of is he simply was not paying attention and suddenly saw the curve and it was too late.

I remember when I was brand new I didn't know that nearly every steep downhill grade has a curve near the bottom. I couldn't figure out why everybody was going so slow when I thought it was a good place to let gravity make some time for me. It didn't take very long to realize why everybody was going slow. There is nearly always a curve near the bottom.

 

It was more than one simple mistake. So he missed a gear? Do any of you know what you do in that case? You stop the truck. NOW!!! You use up your brakes and get stopped; isn't that why we come down slow? So if something happens we have the ability to stop?

 

It's a shame that that 9 day driver wasn't better trained before they turned him loose with a 43,000lb load on a road like that. IMO whoever is responsible for his lack of proper training should be arrested and charged with accessory to murder.

I've been driving since long before Jakes became common and stabbing the brakes slows you faster and allows the brake to build less heat and have more cooling time between applications. Watching rookies (I hope) go down grades, let alone mountains, smoking the brakes while holding them down the whole downgrade is amazing to me. It's hard to believe that they aren't taught better than that in the schools they graduated from. Idunno because I never went to a school. And then at the end of the grade they let the brakes up, flood them with oxygen and just like magic - we have fire.

ALL your braking should be done before entering a curve. If you're still breaking in the curve then you entered too fast. Occasionally a situation arises when after entering a curve too fast that accelerating as hard as possible will actually pull you through the corner instead of braking and tipping on your lid. If you don't believe it then study race car driving techniques. No it won't work all the time but it will work sometimes, especially if the road is pitched to the inside of the corner.

As far as never using the trolley brake goes, I've used it many times to stop an in process jackknife from occurring. Caressing the trolley brake while mashing the throttle on an icy road has saved the day more than once. I'll never forget the first time I saw a trailer that I was pulling coming up to pass me...

 

Great advice but sadly most don't have any concept of how brakes actually work, thus can't make that connection on their own, and also why most of these types of accidents occur.

Hardly even uses up your brakes. If you were to hammer on the brakes as soon as you miss that gear you'll stop the truck no problem, reason being that your breaks are cold. If you ride it out a little while and figure out that maybe you need to stop after you've already heated up your breaks a bit your pretty well screwed.

If you "stab" (in quotes as this also refers to very short brake application time, not necessarily physically stabbing at the pedal) at your breaks for short amounts of time they will cool off faster than they will from sustained braking. It's all about energy transfer, how deep seated it is and how many joules you can transfer in any given amount of time (Q < 0 and Q dot). Variables such as the levels of radiation, convection and conduction, all three of which take place in the cooling of your brakes are what determine how long (time-wise) you can manage your brakes for, relative to how much speed energy you can absorb through them.

 

This is what I meant by euro cab reinforcing !

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...ks-eighteen-wheelers/140744-cabovers-113.html

 

getting caught unaware of downgrade is just not paying attention
or being in a hurry because you were just slowed down going up the mountain
you need to know what goes up must come down

 

Funny how some experience just seems to explain it all.....