From 1973
Ah, yes, this is why I left SDMB many moons ago.
Did you notice that truckers are broadly cast as assholes in the same thread?
SDMB clown show. Ban me now, fuck face.
As you wish.
Are you now The Dread Mod Westley?
[Hi, Zombie thread!!]
One thing I notice/surmise is … cell phones and other handheld electronic devices are a big factor.
In my early days of driving, truckers veering in and out of their lanes was as uncommon as ‘recaps’ (tread from re-treaded tires) were common by the side of the road.
But tires got much better and electronic devices are ubiquitous.
The CB radio didn’t require you take your eyes off the road.
These days, when I (extremely carefully) pass a trucker who’s not conspicuously married to the lane markers, I almost always note that they’re looking at their phone or some other device, meaning: their eyes are simply not consistently on the road.
I see a lot of unintentional brake-checking of trucks in rush hour traffic. No, they didn’t leave that space for you to cut into, that’s their braking area, genius!
I hope the people learning near me (I work near one of the city’s community college locations and one of the classes is CDL training) are learning a bit more than that. But I agree that in general, there’s more being trucked than ever, on roads that are busier than ever, but are also in worse shape than ever. It does feel worse than 20 years ago.
That said, in the last few years I’ve been taking more road trips, with the worst not even being on I-40 but all divided highway and two-lane roads through the mountains. US-550, 491, 191, and 6 mostly. Because of the geography, it’s a major trucking route in southeast Utah, southwest Colorado, and northwest New Mexico. And generally the truckers aren’t too bad. Maybe there’s one jackass each way. It’s the people driving their Class A RVs, the people towing who clearly don’t really know how to tow, and drivers with their heads up their asses who either can’t maintain a constant speed or don’t know when to adjust to other traffic that drive me nuts. And there’s always plenty of those.
Drivers of cars are not trained as to the capabilities of trucks for the most part (bumper stickers disavowing all personal responsibility of the truck driver notwithstanding).
I’ve noticed this also. It seemed especially prevalent in California the one time I went there (which was around halfway between 2004 and today.) Road totally open except for me and a group of 2 or 3 trucks in front of me. So the rear truck was not in any danger of getting cut off by traffic.
When I would approach a group of trucks in this situation, the majority of the time, the rear truck would move over to the left precisely when I would have to slam on the brakes. Even putting a turn signal on ahead of time would have allowed me to save gas and reduce the risk of an accident, which at the very least the truckers should care about because they would have to report it, even if they didn’t care about killing people.
The I-5 between the Grapevine and Sacramento is the only place where I find it noticeably prevalent. And it’s usually the short-haul produce drivers.
Do drivers in California still like to drive right next to each other on the highway getting in the way of anyone who wants to drive faster than they are? I didn’t notice it when I was out there but if they also like to drive right next to a truck I don’t blame the trucks from cutting them off.
It happened no matter what my speed differential. I could be going 20 mph faster than them and it would still happen. Once I noticed it happening I would even slow down a bit as I approached them in case they were just having problems judging how fast I was going, but it still happened.
In my very limited experience, Californians actually hang out next to people less than average. When I was in the left lane and someone approached behind me quickly as I was attempting to pass a long line of cars, I was initially hesitant to move over when the gap to my right was very small, big enough to move into safely but not big enough to move in very far before I encountered the next car. In Florida, cars passing you in that situation usually do do what you are saying - they move up to pass you and then stop accelerating so you’re now stuck in the right hand lane until the long line of cars in the left hand lane all pass the vehicle in front of you.
But the few times I did move over in this situation in California, the car behind me actually passed me quite quickly, quickly enough for me to slide back in to the left hand lane and pass the car I was initially trying to pass.
There were exceptions like any state, but few of them.
When I drove a rental car while visiting my brother in LA in 2017, it was my first experience driving in CA, and as I pulled onto the freeway, I’m thinking “OMG! I’m DRIVING in LA!”
However, I found LA drivers to be the model of road etiquette compared to what I am used to, which is Indianapolis, IN, where everyone fantasizes they are on the Brickyard.
I’m serious-- every Indy driver seems to think that the near occasion of the Speedway gives them leave to drive like assholes. I look both ways before proceeding on red, because this city is the capital of red-light running, not to mention ignoring stop signs. And people come up behind you, ride your tail, and honk if you are going only 5 miles over the speed limit in a residential area, and they want to zip through it. Or they pass you on double yellow going up a hill.
These are all daily occurrences.
That’s just a prelude to my saying that my experience with truck drivers is that they are absolute sweethearts. I even had one pull over to ask if I was OK when I was on the shoulder on my phone-- I’d just pulled over because a text I’d been waiting for had popped up. I told him I was just answering a text, and he wished me a good day and left.
I have never experienced a trucker doing anything described in this thread, and I drive a lot. Maybe my memory is bad, or maybe it’s just that compared to cars around here, truckers are so good by comparison, I don’t remember well.
Or maybe truckers are extra careful in Indianapolis, because you never know what a car might do.
I haven’t noticed truckers cutting other drivers off much in my experience. I see regular car drivers pull this crap all the time
Is this an American commercial driver quality/training thing?
I generally find commercial drivers better and much more situationally aware than your typical commuter. If anything I see other drivers being the dicks, or at least the unaware problem drivers in car - truck interactions.
They can’t see you if you cant see their mirror, but they likely know where you are, because they know people are going to follow too close.
The most frightening experience with a trucker was in a monsoonal rainstorm in Columbia SC. This psycho was literally 5 feet from my bumper in heavy traffic, giving me a choice to either speed up and hydroplane into the ditch, or have this total mindless psycho run me off the road into the ditch. The other lane finally cleared and I was able to get out of his way (I drive Michelin Pilot Sport 4S’s, the best rain tire on the market). I tried honking as the fucking asshole went past me, but he paid me zero attention. THEN he slowed down, changed lanes, and got right back on my ass again. I eventually was able to evade him (IIRC I simply took the next exit, the time lost was worth it).
And they’ll flip on their blinkers to get around a slower rig all the time right when I am passing them-thankfully my SI has sufficient pickup to quickly get out of their way.
I responded to this thread many years ago and said that most truckers seemed to be courteous professionals. My sense is that the professionalism has decreased a bit, but not catastrophically so.
The last few years I’ve seen truckers make more rookie mistakes, which supports the idea that there are now more inexperienced people driving big trucks. Things like loitering in the left lane. I even once saw a truck driver sit in the left lane going up a steep hill, essentially forcing people to pass dangerously on the right. Many, many drivers are clueless about passing on the left, but I expect more from professionals.
Particularly since the pandemic, we’ve also heard that there’s a significant shortage of (particularly) long-haul truckers.
I suspect that – like with the construction trades – the workforce is aging out, and the industry is struggling to recruit enough younger people to the jobs.
Which [wait for it] may occasionally result in lowering the standards for recruiting, hiring, training, and retaining the drivers.
I’ve mentioned on another thread that there are lots of jobs that used to be thought of as much more ‘respectable’ than they probably are today. Truckers were revered as “knights of the road.”
Doesn’t feel like they still are.
They were legends in their own minds.
As someone who has worked in a number of retail chains for the last 20+ years, the level of professionalism in trucking has definitely declined. Even as the monitoring of their behavior among some companies (either fleets operated by retailers or third party logistics companies) has improved, “owner-operators” seem to have gone completely to hell.
In the UK, separate speed limits for lorries and cars are the norm on highways. It’s actually the reason we have a ‘National Speed Limit’ sign rather than a posted speed limit on a lot of roads - the speed limit varies depending on your vehicle. The difference is only 10mph though (although when checking this, I noted that in Scotland it can be 20mph - 70 down to 50 for dual carriageways)