Truckies are a way of life. If you’re going to spend a lot of time on the road you are going to have to deal with truckies. I have respect for them, as I have rarely come across one who behaves poorly.
And if they do I’m probably too scared to do anything about it. 18 tonnes of steel and cargo would crush me like a twig, I’m not risking pissing them off.
I know not to pull in front of one unless I can be assured it will not cause them to brake , and I can survive the 2 minutes it take for them to over take each other, as I’m not in that much of a hurry.
I’m aware from some conversations with truckies that the quicker they get to their destination the more money they make. I know they sometime drive a few hours longer than they should, and I think it’s a shame they should be put under such pressure.
But who of us wouldn’t work a little longer and harder if it meant more money?
I realise I’m just rambling here, but on my last thought, truckies also made the decision to become truckies and must suffer the consequences of their poor driving (if they choose to), and shouldn’t get shitty at us if we get a little impatient with them, because we don’t know their lifestly or their rules. It’s not like they teach us how to drive trucks in drivers ed. we learn how to work with trucks through years of experience. Some of us posting here seemed to have learnt well, and some haven’t.
I guess it’s a matter of live and let live.
The problem is they don’t teach how to share the road with trucks, and be safe, in drivers ed. I ask our local drivers ed. teacher what he taught his students about the subject, and he said “Nothing trucks are no different from cars”. WTF?
I have extremely limited experience to work from, but I drove a 20 foot Uhaul with a car trailer from California to Missouri and I found that truckers are the nicest, most skillful and considerate drivers on the road.
Who else will flash their lights to let you know you’ve got enough room to get in front of them and flash a thanks back to you when you help them out?
Not the assholes in white ford f350s. that’s for damn sure.
In the eyes of the law, it doesn’t matter if you’re passing someone or not, you shouldn’t be speeding. I remember that was drilled into our heads during driver’s ed. Not that it made much difference–I have a bit of a lead foot.
Honestly, if I were the officer in question (never had this happen, as I’ve rarely driven out of state in my issued vehicle or in the private vehicle I’ve had outfitted) I would pull them, contact the local LE organization, and then take the heat for breaking jurisdiction. You’re not supposed to do it, but its excusable.
I drive 60 miles a day on an interstate with plenty of truck traffic and that’s been my experience. Whenever I see an idiot driver I make a point of checking the company name on the cab door and, sure enough, independent owner.
However, there’s one asshole maneuver that seems to be practiced by owners and employees alike. That’s when I’m clearly not in a blind spot, and some truck expects me to let him/her into my lane (when I have no other lane to change to and would have to slow down to let the truck in) just because they put their blinker on and start forcing me out of the way. That’s BS. Wait your turn, Bub. And don’t honk at me like I’m the jerk.
Am I the only one to pick up on the fact this guy admits to performing illegal and life-endangering stunts like what’s described above because he’s annoyed?
Even if the truckers were deliberately blocking all three lanes just to annoy people (highly unlikely), what they were doing was NOT as against the law as passing on the emergency lane, nor as highly dangerous as slamming on your brakes and veering in front of a trucker who’s in tight traffic?
Listen, asshole, there are bad truckers out there. We’ve all run into them. Next time pay attention to how many trucks you pass without notice who are cruising along at an appropriate rate of speed. When truckers are involved in an accident, most of the time it is the fault of someone else. But even the best truck driver in a world is put in an extremely dangerous situation when some self-centered vigilante smegma-for-brains decides to endanger him and others by getting a little road revenge.
These trucks take a lot of time to stop, and if forced to stop too suddenly they can lose control easily. If your little maneuver had resulted in anyone’s death (and it’s all too easy when it’s being done in traffic so thick there are trucks three abreast), you’d be a murderer in my eyes.
By the way, my Dad drove a truck for 25 years. The only accident he was involved in was due to a mis-marked overpass that peeled the roof off of a few vans he was hauling, and he never got any kind of traffic ticket. That’s a DAMN impressive record to me, and he was far from the norm, most of his friends had extremely good driving records. You have to be, if you want a decent-paying job.
I hate the damn TRUCKS… I don’t care who is behind the wheel.
Be they safe and saintly drivers or maniacs, it matters none…
I want to know who decided these monster trucks should be as long as a GD football field!!!
Am I the only one who remembers when trucks were smaller/shorter?? It wasn’t that long ago… but almost overnight the damn trucks grew…
And NOW these bigass football field sized trucks double up and pull another one the same size right behind them and still want to do 70mph+
Even doing 70mph + it takes FOREVER to pass one
Sign me up to bring back rail distribution…
My fantasy: Double decker highways, bottom deck :TRUCKS only,
Top deck:regular vehicles.
And another thing…
All this talk about, you wanna eat? You want it now? Thank a trucker… malarky
With most inventory control being computerized now, stores know weeks ahead of time when to reorder. There should be no jackass hurry to get ANYWHERE if the person doing the scheduling knows what THEY are doing…
Right now, I’m commuting to school along a 20-mile stretch of I-81 where I have to deal with a lot of truck traffic.
Normally, it’s not that bad, except in really bad weather. However, I have run into some real assholes out there. Last week, I almost rear-ended a semi who was slowing down because a cop was parked in the median. For the record, we were both well under the speed limit; I think we were doing around 60 in a 65. The trucker slammed on the brakes so suddenly that I had no idea what was going on. And since we weren’t speeding, there was no reason to slow down like that. (And no, I wasn’t tailgating.)
That said, I have done many multi-state road trips alone. Truckers have been wonderful allies. They’ll tip you off to cops, and a few times have blocked me in so I wouldn’t get pulled over. If I need directions, I can ask a trucker at a truck stop and they’ll usually know the fastest, easiest route.
You can’t possible think that it’s that simple. Let’s see if I can make you understand real life.
Albertson’s Grocery store in Pocatello Idaho needs fresh tomatoes.
They call a distribution center in Boise Idaho and order them.
The distribution center calls a company in Los Angeles California.
The company in L.A. puts in the order with another company in Nogales Arizona.
That company hires a trucking company in Butte Montana to haul one load of tomatos.
The trucking company from Butte sends one of their 143 trucks to pickup the tomatos.
However the trucking company cannot waste fuel and stay in business.
So they have to find a load going down to the area, or they lose lots of money.
They find a load in Logan Utah that goes to Phoenix Arizona.
The truck picks up a trailer drives to logan, gets there before the pickup time, and still has to wait 16 hours for the company to get his load ready and loaded on the truck.
He is now 12 hours behind schedule.
He stops for a quick nap and meal outside of Las Vegas Nevada.
He pushes on for Phoenix where he is three hours to late for his appointment.
He’s missed his appointment so has to wait nine hours for them to work him in.
On to Nogales where he waits at the border 18 hours for a truck to bring the tomatos across the border.
He at least has a chance to sleep but not a chance to eat. He can’t leave sight of his truck to find a restaurant.
The load finally comes and he is on his way.
He again stops outside of vegas for sleep and food.
When he gets the load to Boise it is 45 minutes late and he has to pay a fine.
His truck is unloaded at the distribution center.
He leaves to pickup partial loads in Ontario Oregon, Kenewick Washington, and Fernley Nevada all headed for Sacramento California.
The 2 crates of tomatoes for Pocatello are loaded on another truck along with products brought in by 21 other trucks that day.
Rinse. lather. repeat several hundred thousand times a day 365 days a year.
Oh! and it’s estimated that with out daily deliveries Los Angeles would be out of food in about three days.
I forgot to mention that a large section of the road through Nevada and Arizona are two lane and jammed with motor homes heaed south for the winter. Try to imagine a 20 mile line of little tufts of white hair peaking over dashboards at 35 miles an hour.
Boy, I hope your husband doesn’t, because that’s illegal. Ten hours driving, 15 hours on duty in 24 hours is the legal limit in the U.S. (changing to 11 and 14 in the new year.) I sure hope I’m not driving anywhere near him if he’s running false logs and doing 24-hour shifts.
No false logs. But he has to stay with that truck 24 hours a day. Waiting to load, loading, driving and sleeping. The truck and the load it carries is his responsibility while it’s in his possession.
Listening to people talk IRL and online for decades, it seems to me that Truckers really can’t win no matter what they do. If they go above the speed limit at all (with the flow of traffic, in most cases) then they are “driving like suicide bombers”. If they go too slow, then they’re “fucking rolling roadblocks”. And if they go the same exact speed as you are, then they are “creepy stalkers”. If they drive during the day they are “adding to congestion”. If they drive at night, they are “dangerous sleep-deprived speed-freaks”. If they pass you they are “trying to run you off the road”. If they don’t pass you, and follow you, they are “riding your ass”. If they pull off the road at a truck plaza to get some well-needed rest and food, they are “going to buy drugs” or “looking for hookers”. Yeesh.
One thing I noticed in the last few years is how different truck drivers operate in different parts of the country. I grew up in CA and drove there for many years and had nothing but respect for truck drivers. Almost without exception they were operated in a safe and profesional maner.
Then I moved to VA…
I’m sure its not all the drivers, but its a large enough percentage of them that it has changed my perception of all of them. They change lanes quickly (really more like swerving) without looking or singnaling. They drive in the left lane for no reason. They ride next to other trucks for tens of miles for no reason.
Like I said I’m sure not all truckers do this, but on my 30 mile commute along I-66 the above happens repeatedly. I probably witness one of the above 15 times a day. Compare that to 1/month in CA along a similar commute.
I have many theories on why things are so different, but I wonder if anyone else has experience the same.
Tinkertoy, and everyone else who spoke up for the truckers in the world, You are awesome. I drive a straight truck locally, and I’ll grant it isn’t a semi, but I have the same problems with damn fool moron drivers. As I read the thread, all the things I was going to say had already been said, so I’m just going to agree with everything you guys said.
By the way, I would have been here to defend my brethren, but I was on the road, trying to get the general public their crap so they could buy it for Christmas presents the day after Thanksgiving.
Have a happy holiday.
Well, I’ve got to say that I’m all with the idea someone had suggesting that there be separate highways for truckers. I’m sure every passenger car driver has some horror story about some dangerous, stupid, assinine thing done by a truck driver. And believe me, drivers can tell you of some stupid, dangerous, assinine things that some 4-wheelers do.
SHARE THE FUCKING HIGHWAY, huh?
No matter what you’re driving, respect the laws of physics. And use a head set for your cell phone; they’re not that expensive anymore.
As someone who used to drive semis for a living, in mountainous areas (Utah and Idaho) it’s not that easy. If you’re going slow up a hill, and you come up on a truck slower than you, you can’t just put your brakes on and slow down. You’ll lose the momentum you’ve got going and might find yourself stalled on the side of a mountain. If at all possible (and it’s possible on 4 lane roads) you have to pass and keep going, no matter if it inconveniences the people behind you.
I also used to drive cars for a living for a Drivaway company. I’ve been out there in both capacities, and my experience is that cars cause FAR MORE problems than trucks.
Btw, “good buddy” is truckerese for homosexual. At least it was when I was driving.