Tailgating the general public at high speeds

Knucklehead's steps to dealing with tailgaters:
1. Ride the stripe or the shoulder. Works EXTREMELY well after a recent rain turns every rumble strip into a windshield-covering puddle of shrapnel.
2. Start with a little "wiggle-wagon" action. Nothing too extreme and never really leaving your lane but enough for the idiot to think you're not paying attention (or worse).
3. Slow down 10-15 mph. I drive one of those dreaded 62 mph trucks and if you're intent on riding my bumper at 62 I'm pretty sure you won't like 45-50.
When you pass me I'll be sure to smile and wave. Depending on how long you were back there it may be all 5 fingers or the ol' one finger salute but I'll be smiling anyway.

By the way, if none of the above work I'll get off at the next available exit and take 5. In all seriousness I'm not about to risk my life or yours because I don't like the way you drive. "Brake checking" doesn't help anyway, it just speeds up progress of the inevitable impending collision. That means paperwork and I don't like paperwork (or angry LEOs/company "safety" people).

 

Some of you here obviously have never had your name on equipment spending 70 hours/week in public view. No safety department [should not] will take ONE out-of-the-blue call-in as anything to represent a possible "aggressive driver" trend. There are freaks out there who will call-in on the less-eventful thing, and safety departments come to learn this quickly. But they also learn that when ONE driver gets 2 call-ins inside of a few months, the driver needs to go on notice and given written warning. "Next, your fired"

A safety department that takes any/all call-ins as terms for immediate dismissal with no regard for frequency or other work history, and dismisses a driver on 1 call-in, not knowing where the call-in was coming from or actually witnessed, should have a wrongful termination suit on their desk. But I suspect this is rare.

What does happen in the trucking world is ... a single driver, quickly generating aggressive driving call-ins every few weeks ... some of you say this driver should be given the benefit of the doubt and not fired? Good grief! It must be nice to live in your world where the worker is always perfect and fault-free.

 

Other than philosophically (as if I'm always in agreement with myself on that level), I have professional respect for safe drivers, whether they are more or less experienced than I, and also unsafe drivers to the extent that I drive safely around them (they keep me awake I guess, when regulations fail to let me sleep when convenient, only to say it's not all together at my discression to be as safe or refreshed as possible, just professional).

 

I'm glad drivers live in a day an age now where they can talk about safety being a top priority. It really wasn't that long ago when drivers weren't given 3 days to deliver a load that could normally be delivered in 2. Delivery times were tight and you pushed the envelope a little (or a lot if you worked for a bad company) to make your delivery times. When drivers on here talk about having more than one log book, that's not because they were poor drivers, it was because their companies ran them that hard. The industry has come a long way from what is used to be, some of the progress made has been good, some of it bad.

The only time I reported driver was for a hit and run I saw him do, never for something that might happen. Though that might be because when I drove drivers still had some camaraderie with one another, not nowadays where drivers are constant dicks to each other. Its sign of the times I guess. C'est la vie.

 

I'm all for drivers looking out for one another but how about looking out for the general public as well. Certain situations camaraderie be ######, if you can drive 5 feet from someones bumper going 60mph you have no regard for other peoples lives. I will call without hesitation. There is no excuse for driving that carelessly.

 

Do any of you have bendix radar on your trucks? I work for jbhunt dcs and we can't tailgate, at all, because the bendix tells mgmt how closely we are following people. Not that I want to tailgate, just saying

 

Hi dog-c, that's crazy. Years ago we called the "speedograph" the "narc" or "tattletale". Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think we would need something like you describe (which I've heard of) on trucks, to monitor our driving, That's a real "tattletale", for sure.

 

Glad you revised your position. You're right I should have made my point much clearer to begin with. GSF stands for Golden State Foods. I worked there for over 30 years , retiring in 2011. They are very, very strict on safety policies , and expect their drivers to maintain a certain high level of professionalism , they pay very well , have a great benefits retirement package too. They are one of the companies that o ce you do get hired , you try and never leave.

 

I was on a 3 lane interstate yesterday and saw one truck tailgating another truck in the center lane. Lead trucker did a very aggressive brake check resulting in the second truck braking hard as well. All those brake lights coming on and rapidly slowing trucks caused a chain reaction in all 3 lanes. Very unsafe behavior displayed by both truckers that got a lot of innocent drivers involved.

 

I saw this the other day on the S I95. Three lane highway and traffic moving at 68-70 MPH. The driver wouldn't back off, I felt tempted to call his company but after a little while I just slowed down and let him pass.
There's no excuse for this type of behavior!