Waiting to see if I am cited for rear end accident.

Drivers here dont think they should inspect there trucks, its no longer required ya know. brakes sure they worked last time.

Judging distance between you and another is how you know, when the distance decreases hmm maybe its time to react.

just a thought

 

You can absolutely get it stopped in about that time frame 6-7 seconds. However you need about 340 feet to get it done.

If it takes about a half a second for the situation developing in the world to cross your eyes and imprint onto your mind, it will be about part of another second before you do something about it. Then more time as the rig develops air braking pressure sufficient to make the stop. That's probably two to three seconds gone. The older you are the slower you are going to be, not by much but a touch.

I remember one problem in Ohio where a small truck took away what little room I had between us, whoops there he is. And aint got the time to do anything about it either so I horsed her. People scattered from the two lanes I took. Im glad they worked out that problem with semi gone wild. It was a radioactive truck. Probably dental Xray material or mining isotopes or something. There was no way I wanted contact with that thing.

In Akron I was presented with a SUV stalled in my lane in a construction with 8 foot walls on both sides. 4 cars next to me at speed and there was I with not enough room to stop fully. So I split the difference taking her from 60+ down to right about 29 or so before taking that left lane missing the SUV by this much. I was happy I missed it because there were three kids in the back window watching their potential death come on.

I would be in prison probably if it did not work out well. It's that important to have room in front of you however you can make it.

 

The automatic slack adjusters are a little different than the old manuals.

If a driver is not certified in the specific make and model of a given system that does braking on trucks, that driver should not touch anything under there.

Which is why I don't have a problem having the shop do it. I do have certain strategy to get a quick and dirty adjustment on the brakes but do not use it often.

 

I worked for a company that part of orientation was a class solely on brakes and adjustment. After that, they took us new guys out to a truck and adjusted the brakes themselves, then had us do it. Then there was no excuse.

Why risk the liability to have your driver not trained on a simple, often needed task? I have had auto slack adjusters that were anything but auto.

 

Sarcasm?

 

If it were my choice, I probably wouldn't be too thrilled about putting you back on the road - not after rear-ending someone while trying to jump lanes in reaction to 'vehicle ahead moving a bit slow'. At least, not without agreeing to spend some quality time under close supervision by a retired military instructor with experience in weapons and/or heavy equipment (preferably also from a generation that wasn't so bent on encouraging people in their delusions and fantasies).

Nevertheless, since you'll probably find some way to stay on the road, I recommend making the following adjustments to your driving:

Watch the empty space in front of you and don't rely upon other peoples' brake lights. Your speed should be limited by the space available in front of you, and whenever something causes that space to diminish, you should be reflexively reducing your speed as you lose your space.

Don't reflexively change lanes for anything. Take your time, do it by deliberate choice after it is clear the vehicle ahead is running significantly slower than your legal and intended speed, but don't actually change lanes until you have a safe opportunity (and be more attentive to what's going in in your lane than what you wish would occur in the other). When you have a problem in front of you, make your correction under the assumption that yours is the only available lane, and treat 'lane change to drive around the problem' as an entirely separate matter from collision avoidance. Also, if you can't safely change lanes, then don't, even if it means coming to a complete stop or running slow for half an hour.

 

I dunno, I am loving the TA Heavy Iron buy everything so they have to install and adjust.

 

Generally. When you start sneaking up on them. It's generally a good idea to start slowing down. Brake lights or not. And if you're really crawling up there arse. Your first reaction better be that brake pedal and FAST.

I see vehicles all the time with no brake lights. I haven't hit them yet.