What is more nerve wrecking: Tight, congested streets or Steep Mountains?

Used to be in Boston, but now im regional based out of Richmond so pretty much around here, VA Beach, Fairfax, craphole DC and also your wonderful city haha. Pretty much our companies locations and a couple customers that dictate it so same stuff all the time. Used to do beverage so that was worse.

 

I think a lot of it depends on your truck/trailer setup.

Driving a long wheel base tractor with a 48 foot spread axle with a 70 load on it with 7 feet of front overhang and 15 off the back means that turns that a standard otr truck has no problems with can be difficult or impossible. Turns that would normally be difficult simply aren't going to happen with this rig. Figuring out a route that is going to be possible can be difficult in some places.

So for me, right now, unfamiliar tight streets can be pretty stressful. In a different truck, not so much.

 

Mountains in a blizzard in a combination.
City streets in a bobtail.
I found a job delivering home heating oil. ... 10 wheel bobtail. Pays more than MOST of the ltl companies driving ragged combination units.
Unless I go otr again.. I will never drive a combination unit in urban environments ever again. Too much BS for too little pay

 

There is no comparing mountains during a blizzard. Any of them will kill you.

LA is like what's happening man? NYC be like curse you out then fugatabutit.

My choice would be Reading PA, where people coming out of cross streets force the nose of the vehicle underneath your flatbed deck and frame daring you to move up. And when you do, you rip everything forward of the car's firewall insuring financial freedom for the person who set you up.

 

You can pull a load up a 30% grade? Jeez, I have spun out on dry pavement on a 13% grade with a 72k load.. I am not sure you understand what a 30% grade is.

 

30% as provided with a R model cement mixer empty. The nose of the rig is pointing at the sky essentially. The only thing holding the enitre rig down was the two tandem axles plus tags There was a floating problem with the nose as it all leaned directly back on those tires.

The tires were a cross hatch design specifically made for this situation. The problem was climbling approx a 70 foot cliff out of a man's ozark backyard on shale stone with a momentum run. Once you commit you cannot stop.

You also cannot allow the truck to "Fly" over the roadway which was gravel at the top because there is a field at a different angle gauranteed to mash you in a roll over roll over roll over for hundreds of feet.

Ive been on 24 to 26% (Marked and signed) steep dry. I know what that is like. This 30 approx is steeper than that.

She came up well enough at 40 mph, hit the slope and started spinning came up to the gravel caught a hold of that and plopped down on it and that was that. How did I get down there loaded? Well, you tipped the front axle off with 12 yards of cement in the tank behind your cab and mashed your service brakes to absolutely lock everything. The slipping shale stone rock carried you sliding down into the backyard. Once you stabilized and got your nerves back you drove another 200 feet to the new pour site.

Give me some time, I can provide you with the google earth view of this particular address, the problem is it's on a unmarked road that is common to several homes there where some of the other driveways were poured by backing up a loaded truck until the tires and axles refused to both take power of any kind and also broke traction and hopped. You can break a engine real easy this way.

 

Wet roads!

The snow scares the 4 wheelers and makes them stay home.

When it's wet, they still cut you off. And you're never 100% sure you're not going to hit a slippery spot going through a sweeping bend in the road.

 

Wet is great. When you throw in yankee leaves... it's a conspiracy I tell ya!

 

And soon this too will pass.... it's like with anything else in life once you do it long enough you think nothing of it. Working on 26 years out here the most congested city streets does not bother me one bit. Steep Mountain grades..... Well I don't know maybe I'm crazy I just like the challenge the steeper the more curvy it is I love it. soon if you stay in it long enough this driving thing becomes a part of you and the small insignificant things like mountains and congested city streets become nothing more than just the Daily Grind of life.

 

Tight noreast streets. That's why you have to learn to take over lanes. I hardly even touch my breaks ever on steep grades. I've never heated my breaks once