Big truck != own the road

[Dips]

Depends on where you are. Here in Michigan for instance, cars can go 70 and trucks are supposed to go 60. 95% of the trucks are going 60 but it's the 5% that tend to get noticed by me since I'm not keen on the front of end of the truck having a Neon hood ornament.

Interesting. I've never been anywhere with a dual speed limit like that before.

I'll ask my brother-in-law if he's come across that in his travels. He's an interstate driver but I don't know if he goes to Michigan.

[Reyneth]

Interesting. I've never been anywhere with a dual speed limit like that before.

I'll ask my brother-in-law if he's come across that in his travels. He's an interstate driver but I don't know if he goes to Michigan.

Ohio has it also. Sometimes. I have yet to figure out the pattern though. (Although I haven't tried hard!)

[Dips]

I looked it up online. It seems to be that a handful of states have dual speed limits, especially if the upper limit for cars if 70mph or over.

That would be completely untenable and unsafe here on the east coast. Having lots of large slower moving vehicles to maneuver around would cause pockets of congestion would would increase the liklihood of a crash. It would also slow the flow of traffic down.

Right now we have a law where trucks cannot use the third or fourth lane. Which means if some idjit is sitting in the second lane not passing anyone, it's exactly the same to trucker as it would be to me or you if he were "camping" in the fast lane not passing anyone. The truck CAN'T use the left lane to pass and has to wait for an opportunity to pass the slowpoke on the right or hope he clues in and moves over. That leads to similar problems, backups of trucks who are waiting for a chance to get by the pacing slowpoke.

Granted most of these don't read signs and don't know that trucks can't pass them on the left. Their behavior is due to ignorance not malice. But occasionally it is malice...

I was driving to work one morning. I usually travel the speed in the slow lane. I take a periodic quick inventory in my mirrors to see what's around. It keeps me from being surprised and allow me chances to plan ahead if I have to make a sudden move to avoid an accident. Even though there is nobody around, it's still a habit.

I noticed that the clot of traffic quite a bit behind me had a very slow car in the right lane which was being passed by another slow-but-slightly-faster car. That second car was followed by a truck.

When I checked again the car and the truck had both cleard the knot of traffic. Both were in the second lane. The car was moving so slowly there was no chance of his overtaking me any time soon.

Next check the truck was in the right lane in the process of passing the car, which had suddenly sped up by at least 15mph to close the gap between me and him to keep the truck from getting by him.

That's purposeful. And since he was planning on using *me* to help block the truck in I made a decision to intervene.

I timed it so that I moved safely into the second lane with plenty of room, but made sure the truck was blocking the fool from getting back into the right lane. Then I slowed down gradually so the truck could get by me on the right quickly. If I had any doubts that the fool was fucking around with a truck on purpose, he put those to rest by choosing beeping and flashing his lights at me over passing me on the left which was perfectly clear and safe to do.

When the truck had room I flashed my lights to signal it was safe for him to move in front of me, he did that and was on his way after putting on his flashers to signal "Thank you."

It made my day.

[Andara Bledin]

We have dual limits and lane restrictions here in Cali.

That doesn't stop some truckers from comletely failing to pay attention to them. Of course, it also doesn't stop people from using the "No Passing, Truck Lanes" you find on steeper inclines as free passing lanes, either. I just keep an eye on the reckless idiots and give them a wide berth.

^-.-^

[Primer]

Sounds like what happened to Primer.

I'm just now reading this thread. I was about to ask if there was anybody that did not know what happened to me. I have to agree that the vast minority of the drivers out there cause the vast majority of the suck.

BTW, the second surgery on my right shoulder is healing nicely, but I'll probably be getting my right hip replaced this xmas and the left shoulder put off till next summer. By the time it's all over, I'll be the bionic woman!

[RecoveringKinkoid]

So, give truckers a break. Their lives are hard enough as it is without normal drivers getting upset with them. I firmly believe that in the trucker adage; "If you got it, a truck brought it." So, ease off of the truckers. They're just trying to make a living, and to them, we're the sucky customers.

They'll get a break from me when I start getting one from them.

I wish I had a nickle for every time I had to drive down the road with nothing in my rear window except Peterbilt grill. How nice. Since the road is built and maintained on my tax money, I would at least like to be able to drive somewhere without being bullied by a tool driving something that would kill me and my family pretty much instantly if they hit me.

Which they love to threaten to do.

And yeah. I know they might be on the road longer if they doctor the books. Which is illegal. There is a reason they are not supposed to do that. It's so comforting to know half the people driving 18 wheel behemoths at 80mph are sleep deprived.

They'd get cut slack if they were a little more considerate.

[BrenDAnn]

I am a proud trucker's daughter also, and would like to offer my POV on this whole issue. Yes, there are idiot truckers. Yes, some of them think they own the road. Yes, they tailgate, cut you off, etc when they shouldn't. I'll admit I sometimes think my father is the only good trucker left! However, this should not mean that you don't have to show them respect! I myself was tailgated by a semi, when I was behidn a school bus, and I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes when I had to stop behind said school bus and wasn't sure if said semi was going to be able to stop in time. Thankfully, it did. My Dad usually jumps on the CB and tells tailgaters to back off. One of his pet peeves. Anyway, I'm rambling. The point I wanted to make was, even though there are arseholes out there that give truckers a bad rap, let's stop to consider why the trucks are on the road in the first place. Everything from the shirt you wear, to the computer you're typing your messages on, to the lightbulb in your lamps, to your car, to your food, is and/or has been on a semi at some point in its existence. No, I am not using this as an excuse to let the bad truckers off the hook. The bad drivers should be bitched about. The good ones, however, should, as I said, be respected. If you're at an intersection, and see a truck making a right-hand turn toward you, back up and give him/her some room. Don't tailgate a truck (or draft, as my brother seems to think is so amazing) even though they might tailgate you, and as someone else said, use caution when passing! You may get mad at them, but they are STILL bigger than you, and in the end, in a battle of your vehicle vs theirs, theirs would win. This post has gotten long, and probably offended a few, and for that I apologize, but it irritates me to no end to hear people gripe about truckers. Again, I'm not saying they're perfect--hell, the one that passed my father & me on the right when he was driving me home from college one day and nearly hit us as he was merging back into the main lane proved that (and my father put the car in park at the next intersection, walked over to the truck opened the door, and chewed his arse for it)--but let's try to cut them just a little slack, please? That's all that I ask!

[Rapscallion]

I'm just now reading this thread. I was about to ask if there was anybody that did not know what happened to me. I have to agree that the vast minority of the drivers out there cause the vast majority of the suck.

I have an odd memory, and your accident was the first thing that came to mind.

BTW, the second surgery on my right shoulder is healing nicely, but I'll probably be getting my right hip replaced this xmas and the left shoulder put off till next summer. By the time it's all over, I'll be the bionic woman!

Woo! Reckon you'll get any change out of six million dollars*?

Rapscallion

*adjust for inflation at your peril...

[SilverOrb]

You know... I read threads all the time about rude truckers, or truckers who are driving bullies. It occurs to me that I was rather lucky that all the truckers I met while working for the CB shop were rather nice to me, and I never had an issue with any of them.
Though it may have had something to do with the knife and soldering gun I carried around... LOL

[Geek King]

Interesting. I've never been anywhere with a dual speed limit like that before.

I'll ask my brother-in-law if he's come across that in his travels. He's an interstate driver but I don't know if he goes to Michigan.

As a quick update, Ohio used to have dual speed limits, but as of July 1, all vehicles except special oversized haulers use the same speed limit.

[Meganjo23]

If I remember correctly, if truckers for certain business' get 3 of those "How's My Driving?" calls about bad driving, they're done. I remember a family member complaining about having two calls, which were, from what I remember, not even valid complaints, but if he had gotten a third call then, he wouldn't have been driving anymore. Just a thought from the truckers POV: I wonder how many of those calls are little old ladies with nothing better to do then complain that a truck passed them on the left when they were going 45 and OMG THE NERVE!

I do remember a family trip once when we almot got pushed into a guardrail by a trucker who appearently 'forgot' he had pulled up alongside us on the left in start and stop traffic. Oh yeah, I won't soon forget the sight of looking up from my book to see the gaurdrail getting closer and closer and WTF DOOD! We didn't get smooshed, but we did call that number.

[siead_lietrathua]

i have a mini-rant about a bad trucker from a customer point of view.
i come from a family of farmers, and we pit and pack our fruit to ship to baking companies. any more details and we can be googled so i wont. usually we have the same guy driving our product but one time we had a substitute come in.
when the skids leave our plant they are secured with straps and shrinkwrapped before being strapped again. in the truck they are stacked like
||
.||
||
.||
since the truck has width for two but not three skids, and staggering them evens the weight out. well, when the truck got the the bakery company, the skids were like
//
\\
//
\\
each skid tipped over to the other side of the truck. luckely not all the stacked cases broke open! our usual driver looked at the pictures the bakery sent us, and told us in order for the product to be tipped like that he would have had to be speeding around corners with alot of force (as in cab starting to tip speeds) in both the left and right directions. and the worst part is that the new driver tried to say it was our fault, that the skids were not wrapped right.

well, never saw that driver again anyway.

would post pics, but it would be a giveaway

[Dips]

If I remember correctly, if truckers for certain business' get 3 of those "How's My Driving?" calls about bad driving, they're done. I remember a family member complaining about having two calls, which were, from what I remember, not even valid complaints.

That's sucky management. Complaints which aren't valid shouldn't count. My father-in-law owned a regional trucking company and would get complaints from people who read the phone number on the truck. He never just took their word for it, he'd ask questions and try to figure out what happened.

The AWESOME thing about my FIL was that if he believed the complainer was full of shit, he wouldn't simply thank them for the report and then not do anything.

No. He'd take the opportunity to educate the caller and let them know his driver was driving legally. And if he felt the caller's careless driving contributed to the situation he'd politely tell them what they did wrong and how to avoid having that problem again.

It was because he cared more about safety than soothing anyone's feelings.

The best incident was when a some idiot called around 9PM while FIL and MIL were doing their slips. They were the only ones there at the time. It turns out he tried to merge in front of the truck that had both the right of way AND the right of superior tonnage, and wound up almost driving off the road when the laws of physics didn't bend to his whim. My FIL asked what happened, determined that the caller caused the near accident and told him what he did wrong and how to handle that situation correctly next time.

The caller didn't like that one bit and hung up.

Then called five minutes later to argue the point again. FIL repeated what he said and hung up again.

The guy called again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat about five times.

Then he called yet again and demanded to speak with FIL's boss. FIL informed him he was the owner and had no boss. The guy didn't believe him, but he didn't call back again...

...until the next morning. He got the secretary/dispatcher who had already heard the whole story from MIL and FIL. So when he launched into his complaint she knew who he was. When he demanded to talk to the REAL owner she happily passed him through to FIL.

The caller's head must have exploded because he never called back after that. FIL figures he kept himself up all night because he just HAD to make someone agree with him. I guess his ego was too fragile to handle anyone disagreeing with his high opinion of his own driving skills.

[RootedPhoenix]

It's so comforting to know half the people driving 18 wheel behemoths at 80mph are sleep deprived.

Part of that problem is the inconsiderateness of some (unscrupulous) trucking companies. If some road is impassable (due to snow or some other happening), they will whine and cry because you couldn't make the delivery on time.

They will ask these people to meet insane demands that you can't reach while driving safely. I suspect some truckers feel that they have no choice but to act like crazies on the road...or to doctor the books...or drive sleep deprived, because OHMYGOODNESS what if I don't get there in time.

Not every company is like this, but some are.

Of course, I'm not saying that they should act like crazies on the road, just offering a bit of extra information.

It's still wrong to drive like a jerk. It's still wrong to use your weight to bully other drivers.

[ditchdj]

It turns out he tried to merge in front of the truck that had both the right of way AND the right of superior tonnage, and wound up almost driving off the road when the laws of physics didn't bend to his whim.

Maybe you should mail that jerkoff a copy of the state's driver's manuel. When you're on the on-ramp onto a highway it's up to YOU to find the spot to get on, not the vehicles on the highway already at full speed.