Situational awareness: get some

[wolfie]

Background information: Due to an incredibly idiotic design, going from the 401 westbound to the Dixie Road exit involves getting on a (2 lane) crossover from the express to the collectors, then making 4 or 5 lane changes in around 2 miles. You don't have the option to get on the collectors early, because the ramps from 427 become the collectors. There are a lot of trucking companies, and services for trucks, on Dixie. Needless to say, a large number of trucks have to do this manouver on a routine basis - and it can get tricky in heavy traffic.

I was westbound on the 401 (in my car) needing to get off at Dixie, and in the right-hand of the 2 lanes of the crossover. In the left of the 2 lanes and a bit ahead of me was a semi. Assuming that he wanted to get off at Dixie as well, I hung back, allowing a truck-sized space to form ahead of me (regular readers will understand that I KNOW how much room a truck takes to do something), and flashed my lights as a signal to let him know it was OK to come over. He stays in his lane for a substantial distance. I don't want to miss my exit, so I start moving over to the next lane. At this point, he signals to change into the lane I just left, and cancels his signal after making the change.

By the time I've made my next-to-last lane change, he starts signaling AGAIN. It turns out he's getting off at Dixie too - and after a few tight squeezes, barely makes it (crossing the "point" of the double lines).

That trucker must have known that he wanted to get off at Dixie. Even if he weren't local (and therefore didn't anticipate the difficult layout), if he had been checking his mirrors he would have SEEN the truck-sized space beside him, and the car behind that space giving the well-known-to-truckers signal "come on over". Why wouldn't he take advantage of this opportunity?

In the past, other trucks have not only accepted such an invitation, but (after the same car has squeezed over, opened a gap, and flashed lights a couple times) not even waited for me to flash my lights when the NEXT gap was big enough for them to pull into. I'm sure it's not very common, but most drivers recognize "Hey, that 4-wheeler is running interference for me".

[Sunshine]

N00bie? Jerk? Thats all i can figure...still nice of you to try to help him

[Ophbalance]

Or how abut this. You travel at the PSL of the highway that you're on in the little car with great mileage. The rig behind you has been sniffing up your tail skirt for the last several miles as he/she is also running at the PSL... but only because his governor requires it. Said rig AVOIDS the down grade to pass and instead decides the 2 mile long upwards grade is the ideal place to pass. And low, the multitude of cars that line up between two said vehicles on a slow race to nowhere :P. Typically I'll just kill the cruise control and let the rig "win". 2 miles later I'm back at the PSL and the governed truck is once again happily sailing along.

[It's me]

Yep, getting over to Dixie from the West-bound express lanes can be a bit nerve wracking, especially if there at night or in rain when visibility is lousy. (Of course East-bound is much, much worse )

Just like with cars, there are good truck drivers and bad truck drivers. And since that part of the GTA is full of distribution centres it's wall-to-wall trucks, so there it is pretty much a guarantee you'll run into bad truck drivers there.

[mathnerd]

Sounds like a steering wheel holder not a driver.

I've run interference for trucks more times than I can count on one of the nastier roads around here. Every once in a while I get one that can't figure out what I'm doing, but most of the time, like you said, they figure out real fast that the 4 wheeler is trying to help them out seem appreciative.

[wolfie]

Even if he didn't realize I was trying to help him, he should have noticed the space, figured "Great! There's space to make my first lane change", and moved over. If you need to get all the way to the right, you take advantage of any space that presents itself. In heavy traffic, it's bad enough trying to get a CAR across all those lanes.

[Shalom]

You don't have a CB in the 4-wheeler?

[wolfie]

You don't have a CB in the 4-wheeler?

Planning on getting one eventually - the antenna is the big problem, since magnetic mounts are a POS. Even so, a disturbing number of truckers either don't have a CB or leave it turned off.

[mhkohne]

Planning on getting one eventually - the antenna is the big problem, since magnetic mounts are a POS. Even so, a disturbing number of truckers either don't have a CB or leave it turned off.

How would you know what channel to transmit on? Ismthere one normally used by trucks?

[wolfie]

How would you know what channel to transmit on? Ismthere one normally used by trucks?

Channel 19 is what military types would refer to as "Common", so if you're trying to get in touch with a truck, that's the channel to use. 9 is supposed to be for emergencies (but you're more likely to get your message through on 19, since I don't know of anyone who monitors 9). Some trucking companies "adopt" (unofficially, since legally all channels are open to everyone) a channel for communication between their drivers, and some shippers/consignees will have a sign posted asking drivers to check in over a particular channel.

[Shalom]

the antenna is the big problem, since magnetic mounts are a POS.

Depends on which. I still have my father's vintage 1979 K40 Magnamount, which works fine. (I wouldn't put it on my leased car without refacing the bottom surface, though, as I don't want to scratch the paint. My old 4x4 I wouldn't care so much, that was garbage paint from the factory.)

He started out with a gutter-mount clip (remember those?) center-loaded short whip, but eventually upgraded to a bumper-mount 102" whip, which with the spring and quick-disconnect added up to a full 108" quarter wave. That worked really great until the day he looked in the rear-view mirror and it wasn't there anymore. It was a Swing-A-Way folding antenna, similar in design to the collapsible white canes used by blind people, and could be folded down to about 13" when not in use. Unfortunately they weren't particularly weatherproof, and eventually the steel cable inside would rust through, at which point your 102" antenna turned into eight 13" antennas and a screw base. He tried to collect on the "lifetime" warranty, only to find that it was defined as the lifetime of the company who made it, who were defunct. That's when he went out and bought the K40.

Even so, a disturbing number of truckers either don't have a CB or leave it turned off.

Well there isn't any law saying you HAVE to have it, or have it on. It's a convenience, a way of belonging to a community, a way of being safer on the roads maybe (although the advent of the cell phone in the past 15 years has minimized the importance of that aspect).

Heck, this very board serves much the same purpose as Ham radio and CB (and later Usenet) did for me, in allowing me to connect with self-selected people who share some of my interests.

Channel 19 is what military types would refer to as "Common", so if you're trying to get in touch with a truck, that's the channel to use. 9 is supposed to be for emergencies (but you're more likely to get your message through on 19, since I don't know of anyone who monitors 9).

REACT used to monitor 9, but I don't know if they still do. Every so often you'll see a sign "Highway patrol monitors CB channel X". X is usually 19 around here.

History lesson:

Back in the old 23-channel days, they used the three channels closest to the middle of the band for mobile use. (Reason for this was because with a short, inefficient mobile antenna, you had to tune it for optimum SWR on a specific frequency. If you tuned it for channel 1, then 23 would suck and vice versa, so you tuned it for the center of the band for least sucky performance out the ends. Also, all the way back in the beginning of CB in the early 60s, many radios were crystal controlled and not everyone could afford to buy 23 pairs of crystals, so they only had a few channels installed.)

Channel 9 was (by law) for emergency communications only, 11 was (by law) a calling channel: you monitored 11 for your call, then established communications and decided which channel to change to. The truckers decided ad hoc to use 10 as a mobile-to-mobile channel. This went on for some time, but eventually the guys on 9 complained that the heavy radio traffic was "bleeding over" into their channel and causing interference with emergency communications. By then, the band had been opened up to 40 channels as it is today, so they picked 19 as closest to the center of the expanded frequency range.

Back when I was active on CB, there was another unofficial mobile channel for cars-only parkways in the New York area. I think it was 15, but memory is hazy. I also seem to remember certain highways having their own channels, which you'd ask on 19 which one to choose (probably there were guides published in places like S/9 magazine as well).

Shalom (once KTB-9325, back when there were still CB licenses; also КА2GУР)

[wolfie]

Depends on which. I still have my father's vintage 1979 K40 Magnamount, which works fine. (I wouldn't put it on my leased car without refacing the bottom surface, though, as I don't want to scratch the paint. My old 4x4 I wouldn't care so much, that was garbage paint from the factory.)

On a road trip a couple years back, I bought a cheapie (Cobra 19) that "forgot" the channel it was tuned to when the power went off, and a cheap center-loaded magnet mount. Maybe it's a crap magnet, or maybe car roofs are thinner nowadays, but it would tend to blow off at highway speeds.

Well there isn't any law saying you HAVE to have it, or have it on. It's a convenience, a way of belonging to a community, a way of being safer on the roads maybe (although the advent of the cell phone in the past 15 years has minimized the importance of that aspect).

CB can do things a cellphone can't - for example, you don't need to know the other person's contact info. The UPS driver on I81 about 5 years back sure appreciated hearing that the (roll-up) door on his second trailer was open, and I'm sure a certain flatbedder around 2 years ago (radio was off - found out when we were both pulled in for inspection during a blitz) would have preferred to have stopped BEFORE the inspection to deal with a forgotten chain binder that was just hanging loose. It was considered "unsecured cargo", which is a BIG fine.