why do some drivers tailgate?

I've done that trolly brake thing a bunch of times...in my truck you can drop that lil lever a inch or 3 and the lights come on before the brakes kick in...you don't slow down but the corn smoke behind you does...lol

 

wait till he gets older.

he'll have a whole different outlook.

 

Drafting was a thing in the '70's. My first foray driving a big rig started in 1977. Every trucker had a CB and used it. We often communicated with each other and formed convoys, with the intent to draft each other.

In a '74 Ford cabover with a 250 hp engine it was a good thing to be able to draft. Running 70 mph on I-80 through Wyoming in a convoy of 10+ trucks I tried to stay within 20' of the trailer in front of me. If I fell farther back the vortex would catch me and suddenly I would get slowed down and start catching hell from the drivers behind me.

In a convoy you took turns on the lead, breaking the wind. With that underpowered Ford the group would often decide to make my stint in the front be a short one.

I tried drafting a few times when I got back into trucking in 2012. I soon realized that it was a completely different ballgame. Now I keep at least a six second following distance. With an ungoverned truck I can accelerate to keep from blocking traffic. When I drive a governed truck, THAT'S when I may be stuck with getting close to initiate a pass.

 

Yeah. He's not a bad kid. He'll go pout for awhile but he'll be back. He understands all the basics but I don't think he knows how much he still has to learn and how evident that is to those of us that have been out here for a while.
It's just that he constantly preaches to the choir and his need for ego reinforcement gets old real quick.

 

Tailgaters. Can't see past the hood & doesn't think past the steering wheel.
Now if you were trying to make a hood ornament out of their car, that would shed a different light on the subject. Trucks that tail...not a driver.

 

Semitrucks tailgating? No, they're drafting to save fuel

 

A friend of a friend is a retired South Carolina DOT cop. I remember the 3 of us was having dinner once and we started discussing things like this. He said he drove an unmarked cruiser and had a driver pulling twin pups to tail gate him. He let it go for several miles and as they come up near the last southbound exit on I 85 he just flipped his lights on and pointed to the breakdown lane. The driver got inspected long formed and put out of service. Several major problems were discovered during the inspection. Just a word to the wise about tailgating. Sometimes that car you might choose to tailgate might well be a cop, and yes last I heard South Carolina uses unmarked cars by state Highway patrol the State DOT as well as county and local cops. Thay also don't all use crown Vics with blackwalls and antennas sticking out all over the trunks. I once seen a marked car sitting behind an unmarked car with his lights on making it look like the unmarked car was getting a ticket. When in reality both were using radar.

 

i try to boost no one's ego. they take what i have to say, as i am as upfront as i can be. after nearly 40 years, seen nearly all of it,. heard nearly all of it, and i ain't a part of someones "choir".

if someone does not like what i have to say, then don't read it. but personally i will not sugar-coat anything.

some people only want to hear what they want to hear, and no others opinion or advice (to them) is any good........

 

Because they get paid by the mile and clocked by an ELD