I was thinking that if she was noticing it often, that the occasional cop wannabe might have prejudiced her against allowing more generous explanations to the more common occurrences of getting stuck behind passing trucks.
Incidentally, what happens if the truck being passed isn’t interested in playing the cop wannabe game? Does the one driver ask over the CB “dude, WTF?, just let the red Nissan pass”, or something?
Thanks. In inner-city congestion, and on a bicycle, it’s way too easy to forget about that front blind spot that trucks are going to have for a few feet in front of their grille. Luckily, I was well out of that area, but it was closer than I could possibly feel comfortable with.
Probably for the same reason four-wheelers do it. Do you have any idea why four-wheelers do it? I sure as hell don’t. It’s as annoying as those jerks who truck along in the travel lane at 68 in a 70 until I come up on them at 75, realize they’re going too slow, bump it up to 76, move over to the passing lane, then pace the car in the travel lane at 71 for the next three miles.
twitch
99.8% of the time when I get really, really pissed at another driver it’s a four-wheeler. So do you, and so does anyone else on the road. It’s just that the other 0.2% of the time the guy who pisses you off is big and SCARY.
My single scariest moment on the road involved a trucker in Cheyenne, WY. Approaching Cheyenne on I-90 I encountered a small sleet storm, continued through the city, and picked up I-25 North. About the time I came off the merge the back end of the sleet storm hit and right before ALL of my windows completely and utterly FOGGED UP I saw tail lights, so I put my brakes, too. Turned on my defrost and defog and cracked my window, and once my windows cleared up enough for me to see, I looked in my rearview mirror and all I saw was grille. Not a license plate, not a headlight, just grille. I have no. fucking. idea. how that guy avoided rear-ending me but he did. It wasn’t until years later that I understood the skill that driver exhibited.
I worked for a trucking company for a time and have defended them in the past, and will continue to do so. But as with any other population there’s a healthy percentage of jerks out there. Suck it up and deal. It’s never a trucking issue, it’s an individual thing.
One of my drivers was driving an empty flat across a bridge with Jersey barriers when a car blew a tire. He locked it up and somehow managed to avoid hitting the car. When the state trooper arrived at the scene and checked over those involved in the near-wreck he was more worried about HIM than the occupants of the car that crashed. My driver was the only one really aware of what COULD have happened. Earlier in the day he had unloaded 20,000 pounds of granite. Imagine those physics.
Because the vast majority of drivers ignore turn signals, whether they be from 4, 10, or 18 wheelers. Some of my drivers referred to their turn signals as intentions, not requests, and drove accordingly. I’m not entirely sure I disagree with that sentiment…
Ok, so where’s the hate for truckers with only cabs, no trailers, driving like madmen to their next pickup point? I was damn near splattered a few years ago by one. I was doing probably 75-80 passing someone in a 70 zone(60 for trucks) and a cab with no trailer was doing at least 85 - 90 and came up on me, VERY CLOSE, in the minute to ninety seconds it took me to complete my pass, honked, and gave me the finger.
Fucking asshole. His desire to make his next trailer pick-up point as soon as possible(because every mile without a trailer costs him real money) should not excuse doing 25-30 MPH over the limit and nearly splatting other drivers.
Can you shed any light on the phenomenon where some truck drivers feel the need to be the merge police? For example, a two lane road is merging down to one lane, and the merge point is approximately a mile out. Many times I have seen a large truck get into the merge lane about 1/2 mile to 1/4 mile out and just throw on the brakes, thereby forcing everyone to merge a little earlier. Is is just to cut off those drivers who wait until the last minute to merge?
Sometimes I see large trucks go by weigh stations without stopping. Aren’t all large trucks required to stop at the weigh station? What is the deal here?
Good thread Lucy. My husband is a truck driver as well and has been since 1989. He was OTR long haul until about '92, then went to local, but still works for the same company. While he was OTR, he also worked as a driver-trainer for the rookie drivers to his company. He was a hard-nosed asshole with all of them, but, they turned into decent drivers. The only one that didn’t, had formerly driven for the company and wanted to come back. For whatever reason, he had to do a stint as a trainee with my husband. This guy was a complete and utter asshole who thought he knew everything. He insisted on being taken back to the terminal early to “test”. The hubby’s dispatcher ordered my hubby to bring the guy in. My hubby told the dispatcher the guy was not ready, was a horrible driver, and also said he refused to sign any paperwork indicating the guy was ready and had passed the training. Guess what, the guy screwed up the testing. He ran into a building while backing around a corner, he forgot to drop the doglegs on the trailer before pulling out and the trailer dumped. There were a couple of other things, but that’s what I remember. The guy ended up NOT working for the company.
I spent some time on the road with my hubby, and boy howdy, does sitting in the cab of semi give you whole different perspective. I was amazed at the amount stupidity displayed by other drivers.
Being a trucker is hard, lonely work. Most are decent people and go out of their way to help others. I give them all a lot of credit.
There will always be asshole drivers, on BOTH sides of the fence. I just give them all the space they need to goof up.
I try to do that, but people keep pulling into it.
Oh, that reminds me of another driving story. I was driving down a very slippery hill in the right-hand lane, a little below the speed limit because of road conditions. A guy was tailgating me all the way down, so I said to my passenger, “I’m going to let this guy pass me so he can have his accident somewhere else.” I pulled over to the left lane, he whipped by me on the right, and promptly lost control and hit another car at the bottom of the hill. Ha! Sweet vindication!
Okay, I’m back … Got about an hour or so - so I’ll get right to it …
Those of us who give a shit try to remind the driver that this would be the courteous thing to do. All too often we get told to “Fuck off and drive our own truck”. At this point I try to explain a few life facts to them, but for some reason they just turn their CB off. :smack:
Actually, IIRC, the driver was cited for reckless endangerment or some such seriousness. The other fine upstanding young ladies were cited for, of all things, indecent exposure. Frankly, I’d rather look at that than some of the faces I see …
Ahhh, Look … up in my mirror … what could it be? Faster than a speeding jerkoff, more powerful than a fart in a hurricane, able to leap past other cars in a single bounce, it’s … SUPERCAR! (Somewhat less than technical term for any rig able to exceed the speed limit by more than 5 mph)
What can I say? Did ya ask him for his card as he went by? Probably says "Jerkoff Shirtoff, Professional Moronic Idiot. :rolleyes:
Sure thing. As soon as you can explain to me why, when everybody is sitting there patiently wait for the traffic to funnel down into the one lane, other jerks feel like they’re so important enough to bypass all those people and run up to the head of the line and butt in. I doubt they’d try it at Mc Donald’s during the lunch rush (probably 'cause they know somebody would punch their lights out!). So, as frustration mounts, and you keep watching all of these self-important jerks go by - some drivers hang their trailers out kinda as a place marker. It’s really a lot safer than what I saw a guy driving a Beemer do last year - He got out of his car and started hitting cars with a baseball bat as they went by. (8 broken windshield later, he got arrested.) :wally
Those trucks that you see bypassing the ports belong to companies that have met certain qualifications and pay fees to join the “Free Pass System”. The trucks are equipped with a special receiver that gets instructions from the computer in the port. When they cross the “Weigh In Motion” scale, the computer gets a quick ball park weight. If the truck is within certain parameters, the receiver gets a signal and the driver is free to bypass the port. If not, they have to pull in and cross the scales for and accurate weight.
Simple, huh?
Taters, Thanx …
Gotta love it (except the part about them hitting an innocent …) Revenge is a dish best served cold. And it’s even better if you don’t have to serve it 'cause they did it to themselves …
Ever hauled livestock? Do the drivers of those rigs have to know anything about care of the critters they’re transporting? How strict are the regulations for livestock welfare?
Now, I know a two-horse trailer pulled by a pickup is way different than a hauler headed for the slaughterhouse, but I also know from riding with my horse-hauling friend that when you’ve got a live load on four legs you have added concerns about stuff like rapid braking, unless you like the idea of animals being thrown down by inertia.
Every time I see a trucker doing this, I’d like to give him a cookie.
The ones you should be complaining about are the stupid motherfuckers who, the moment they notice that traffic is slowing down, zip into the lane that nobody else seems to be in (I wonder why?!), zoom down the road at 10mph over the limit, then sit there without so much as a goddamned turn signal waiting for some pushover to let Their Royal Highnesses in, thereby stopping traffic unnecessarily, causing the people behind the pushover to slow down…at which point some other dipshit zips into the unoccupied lane, etc., etc.
Somehow, the sight of a 40-ton rolling blockade on eighteen wheels moving along at a sensible rate down the lane seems to be quite effective in curbing this behavior.
Sure did, and sure can. Considering your stated profession I’m a bit surprised that you can.
Problem being there’s no statistical evidence in the article that says most of this is because of truckers. Furthermore, the person whom I was replying too said “most of them are” not “most of them in the state of washington.” Even if the article made the statement using verifiable statistics that showed most of it comes from truckers, it still wouldn’t be evidence telling us about the entire country.
Martin Hyde Given the way you feel about truck drivers I think the only ethical thing you can do is to Boycott them. Refuse to use anything ever carried on or in a truck.
I’m not just complaining about the truck drivers who act as the “merge police” while giving those who zoom to the front of the merge line a free pass. I think they are both irresponsible behaviors. Yes, E-Sabbath, I remember that discussion, but knowing that it is true intellectually is one thing, but being passed by some guy only to see him come to a dead stop at the merge point and slow down traffic is another thing. It is just hard to see how this is faster. It just seems to me that truck drivers are hired to move their load from point A to point B, not to act as the merge police.
My other question stemmed from my living near a truck scale. I live off of a major route that parallels a major interstate, and I often see a police car sitting at the bus stop where I live. More often than not, he has a semi pulled over in that wide area. The only reason I can think that this would be happening is that a truck has exited the interstate right before the truck scale with the thought of taking the side route to skip the truck scale with the intention of getting back on the interstate afterwards.
Which I guess brings me to my next question(s). How long does it take to go through a weigh station? Is it really something so bad as to be avoided at all costs? And if they are just trying to skip the scale because they are overweight, how prevalent is overloading?
It’s interesting to hear from a long distance trucker. It’s a job a lot of people wonder about but one meets so few truckers IRL. I know a little of the high desert area in NV; you must drive through some beautiful country on a regular basis.
Regarding the drivers who dart into your braking cushion…maybe you should put a big sign on your grille, in mirror image letters that says the following:
'DO YOU KNOW
HOW MUCH DAMAGE
MY TRUCK WOULD
EXPERIENCE
IF I LET IT ROLL
RIGHT OVER YOU?
My respect for truckers (or more accurately, my awareness of just what they have to deal with) came about when we took a family trip out West. We were on the Western Slope, taking I-80(?) into Denver. It was like a roller coaster ride, down and down and down. We came upone a HUGE sign that said, “Truckers, you’re half way down”. Egads. The thought of trying to control that amount of mass for that long AND combat RVs(which I hate), SUVs, and Mini-Coopers (and motorcycles etc)–makes my blood run cold.
I give you alot of credit.
BUT.
When I was a teenager, I drove my mother’s stick shift Rabbit. Tiny little car-loved it. There are truckers out there who are just assholes–and IMO, they like to play games with blonde teen girl drivers. I had truckers so close to me that all I could see was grill–in a construction zone, no less! Thank God for the maneuvarability of the Rabbit, is all I can say.
Also, I drive I-80, 394 and the Dan Ryan alot. IMO, there is a difference between long distance haulers and these guys. The ones doing these routes seem to be in some kind of death game(hell, all the drivers out there are). I see much rudeness in that spaghetti bowl. Then again, if and when the damned construction ever ends, perhaps tempers will cool down.
and I love the trucker merge police–stop trying to get ahead in a dead end. Merge when you are told to merge, and make it smoother for all of us.
