Swift double fatal I-8 San Diego

Hm.

That changes everything then. What a mess. When I think of my trainees (Including the ultimate trainee, a wife... of all things...) I like to keep them out of trouble. Babysit them a little bit. So they have time to do what they need to do without me hollaring at them. I already know what I might do if something did come up. (And has....)

The only question I have left now is does the trainer get fired too? In my time I think so.

 

it's California, kingpin to center of rear axle, 40 ft or less.

 

I think I've asked this before but don't recall ever getting a solid answer...

In a late model auto truck (let's say a Freightliner) that is traveling at 62 MPH, what do the various drive line systems and engine do in an emergency hard braking event?

I.e. Does the clutch somehow engage and if so is it only momentarily? How can the transmission react to such a rapid deceleration without affecting certain engine torque dynamics in a way that might make the situation worse (at least momentarily)

I realize this does not seem to be an issue for automobiles and I'm not exactly sure what they do in an e-brake scenario. I wonder if a big truck effectively does the same as a car and as quickly?

Is it possible there is some correlation between the recent increase in road speed rear end crashes and the larger numbers of automatic trucks? (Drive train slow to react (cut all engine power and disengage and remove all negative torque) and working against emergency braking action which can act faster)

 

Brews coffee...&& love questions like this... let's see...

In the old days if you got cut off very badly like really close by a car packed with people intent on setting up a insurance scam to make you slam into them, you used very heavy braking to try and do anything humanly possible to help that big truck not to hit them. Like all the way to the floor on your service brake, air be ###### let's stop that thing right here NOW. Instantly.

That old big truck will do it for you on dry pavement in about 300 feet. Maybe a shade less. You will ruin your tires in places, apsalt will ball up inside the locked treads and ruin it.

I took out a car on the DC 495 beltway next to the National Cathederal in what we call the "Esses" where it's very curvy. I had a old 83 freightliner cabover with a 300 cummins, a 10 speed roadranger. (that is not worth a ####... but bear with me)

As far as the actual stop, I could care less about that engine. She stalled out when the rpms fell below 600 and dragged on the clutch with the top tear still in. I had to sort of beat on the stick to knock her out of gear at like 10 mph while making the stop because she started bucking a little bit that made for a attempt to roll the car that was across my bumper under my loaded front end. When she stalled (Tractor) she simply stopped right there quicker. Drive tires were patched out and ruined too. Shrugs. We aint had damage anywhere inside the shaft, joints, transmission, clutch, final drives, engine etc. Thankfully.

Fast forward to 2001.

Brand new freightliner century. 500 Detroit Engine. Rockwell Meritor Automatic Transmission. 9 Speed I think.

95 southbound throgs neck bridge whites bridge interchange junction about 3 miles prior to east river and above the George washington bridge. Speed 65 mph, governor, cruise on, jake stage 3 set. Coffee in one hand talking to wife in bunk. Middle lane, pouring rain, about a inch or more per hour. No traffic. Except.....

This little VW rabbit filled with half breeds crawling down my left trailer side slowly eyeballing me heavy in the mirrior. Hair rises on my neck, another insurance scam for sure. Especially when Im all alone on the road fixing to enter what I consider good ground for crime, a series of curves coming up with brick walls on all sides... prior to the GWB. And all 4 in the vehicle is eyeballing us not in a nice way.

They pulled front. Horsed over into my middle lane and stopped dead. About... oh... 5 painted white lines ahead.

I slammed the Brake to the floor, ABS instantly kicked in on that tractor and trailer, yellow ABS light lit as required on that far corner left of my trailer and my dash responded properly with two lights and alarm for the beginning of the emergency braking. Spouse goes flying into the crash net on her bunk like we usually have up at all times. Coffee tips.

Tractor noses down engine dumps power, transmission stays in gear and begins to downshift following the engine and road speed that was bleeding off incredibly rapid. Water on the pavement only make the ABS to really get to work BUZZZ on the entire 18 wheeler.

From 65 to around 30, I horsed the tractor around out of the middle lane, missed the VW by about 3 feet if you went by the last little peek I took out of the corner left of my eye while eyeballing my blessed trailer in the left mirrior tandems waiting to see if I slap the VW or just miss it. This time my windshield filled with the three lanes left prior to gaurd rails. Wife starts to squeal.

I had the VW middle left of me and saw daylight with trailer tandems to miss it. VW had stopped. I was still at about 26 and falling really fast. No way am I stopping there. Come off brakes, ABS quit, HISSS slapped that detriot, transmission already in gear following me down the 5 seconds or so during the stop, now it's time to GO now.

She leaned into the engine and it's go time. I had her back at 65 in a little longer time it took to make the slow.

That vw sat there stalled looking at me go bye bye as more herd trucks coming up on them and started their own versions of OMG this stupid car... and braking etc. Radio lights up. I make battle plans against VW should they try to chase.

That auto followed me for everything I did on that wheel that day during the encounter. It's working way faster at a electronic speed than I can ever do it. When I wanted to go right that second it had a gear, engine was in torque and we went. Beaufi####ingful. heh.

The next encounter that made a demand on the automatic transmission was west of knoxville TN on winter ice and snow. We were climbing up towards Cumberland Plateau on a left hand curve above a median canyon that got steeper right there. We were number one of 9 in convoy. TMC flatbed was number 4 and griping about his tippy expensive load.

Our truck slips like a fat lady on marbles on the drives into a tractor jack knife. Spouse was driving. We were in interlock at 25 coming around the mountain as it were. When that poor tractor slipped into a proper and really violent jackknife drives going right spouse squeaked, I bounced from the pax seat where I had been waking up with coffee onto the dash top on knees grabbing her wheel just a touch and moved it into the skid about 3 inches. Barked at wife to freeze with that right foot on her gas pedal.

Automatic transmission stayed in gear, selected another gear as soon my small steering wheel adjustment went in and the drives bit. Just at that moment the transmission went ahead and shifted down two and applied power from the engine at 16 mph as we climbed out of the canyon upgrade out of the jackknife. Number two jacked where we did he came out. Three did not and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 all spilled into the canyon effectively closing the interstate that day.

That auto selected two gears down, she settled into torque and started pulling out of there, I got back into pax seat and started asking roll call on the radio for everyone in convoy. We had 3 with us, the rest were in the middle wrecked. But no one hurt.

I am convinced that the technology worked perfect that morning. And if it had been a manual instead, she would have stalled and continued into the jackknife.

There is your two scenarios as I present to you from our experiences with auto and one with a manual.

 

Well it makes sense the transmission engineers would want prudent reactions in e-brake scenarios but there is room for error if an internal transmission component is not operating up to expectations and/or different weight and road conditions and ABS effectiveness, and/or mismatched firmware/hardware (if that's possible)

But I will for now assume a 75,000 lb auto can stop as quickly from 65 mph as a 75,000 lb manual from 65 mph, all other things being equal.

 

The blessed engineers on our Auto forgot one thing.

Code for teams that never stop, never shut off engine or transmission (Truck...)

Our auto required in the manual to be off, as in shut off that tractor for 30 minutes minimum to sit dead every 7 days. Otherwise the software buffer filled and bricks the auto's brain, literally a mini windows computer OS inside. It will blue screen error and quit working. You now have a dead tractor and trailer with load requiring a tow.

Company FFE officer shows up to verify everything thinking about firing us. Is it our fault that auto transmission bricked and died on us? That pile of unwashed laundry in the right seat (Oops...) and it's the VP's birthday too. Right about where he's expected to be home at 5PM in fort worth where we broke down.

We never shut down. And auto just filled up it's buffer memory, fails to dump it (Hence the factory manual in truck that says we need to shut off that truck for 30 minutes every 7 days.... Teams do not shut down... savvy?

Tow truck shows up.

Dispatch is told not to load us until we get laundry done somewhere. Embarrasing.

 

You guys can hash this anyway you want.

Root cause of this latest travesty inflicted on the American public ---- just look at the side of the trailer.

 

I have no idea what an AMT would do in a hard braking/panic stop scenario. I would think it would be in the programming to disengage the clutch to prevent engine stall once the engine RPM drops below a set threshold. Again that is just speculation. A car or light truck auto is a lot different. They have a torque converter rather than a clutch. The transmission is actually powered by oil flow in the torque converter rather than being connected mechanically to the engine (assuming the lockup clutch in the converter is unlocked of course).

 

Okay but these nearly identical crashes occur 4-5 times each and every week and there is NO common denominator as far as names/DOT #'s. The #1 cause is probably Inattentive Driver, but I'm just wanting to see if maybe there may be other contributing factors tacked on to driver error that make a bad situation worse.

 

yup lost control on dry roads I'm going with big time ROOKIE mistake