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http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/trucks/a22004/stay-away-from-trucks/
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I tell you - the only time I get nervous on a bike is when surrounded by trucks and the 401 is notorious....
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Want to Live? Stay Away from Semi-Trucks ...good article
- Thread starter MacDoc
- Start date
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http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/trucks/a22004/stay-away-from-trucks/
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I tell you - the only time I get nervous on a bike is when surrounded by trucks and the 401 is notorious....
PLau
Well-known member
Driving around a truck:
If you're in their blind spot for more than a few seconds at speed, don't be - pass them when you can clear their vehicle.
If you're in front of the truck and being tailgated by it - gtfo of the way
If you're behind the truck - draft it and save some gas.
(Kidding btw... Around Toronto on a motorcycle, you'll probably get taken out by someone quickly tucking in behind a truck without checking to make their exit)
If you're in their blind spot for more than a few seconds at speed, don't be - pass them when you can clear their vehicle.
If you're in front of the truck and being tailgated by it - gtfo of the way
If you're behind the truck - draft it and save some gas.
(Kidding btw... Around Toronto on a motorcycle, you'll probably get taken out by someone quickly tucking in behind a truck without checking to make their exit)
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conundrum
Well-known member
I remember driving in the collectors and hearing a loud 'bang', looking over and seeing a cloud of dust and debris in the express from a blown transport tire. Luckily it didn't cause an accident (I don't think), but I immediately thought "wow I'm glad I wasn't driving over there" followed by "I'm damn glad I wasn't riding over there!". Since that day, I do try to get past them as quickly as possible.
IIRC, my driving instructors referred to buses and trucks as "billboards" since they were often plastered with advertising/branding. Billboards have poor outward visibility, slow reaction times and plenty of mass, all of which makes them extremely hazardous to other road users. The simple rule was: keep away, whether by passing smartly or holding back. That was ages ago. Ever see a semi trailer tire come flying off and then bounce across the highway like a missile? *shudder* Won't soon forget that. Given the number of riders/drivers who tailgate and cut off billboards, I'd say Mac's PSA is a good idea.
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A couple of weeks ago I was following a big semi down the 400 at a safe distance. But then he changed lanes. There was a big van in front of him going pretty slow, and I was overtaking him too fast for comfort. Took me by surprise, so I had to react quickly. Made me think of that girl who stopped to help the ducks on the highway near Montreal last year.
Along with all the other issues, you can't see through a big truck, or over them, or around them. Since then, I have made a point of keeping an extra second or two of distance behind them.
Along with all the other issues, you can't see through a big truck, or over them, or around them. Since then, I have made a point of keeping an extra second or two of distance behind them.
Was just behind a truck that blew a tire a few months back. Aside from the startlingly loud bang, the tread which flew into the car beside would have been curtains for a biker.. took the mirror right off that poor little Yaris
A friend had a tire from a truck going in the opposite direction on the 401, bounce off the the hood and over her minivan.
There doesn't need to be a special rule for trucks.
Like anything else: Be aware. Approach carefully. Signal your intentions. Pass. Get over.
There doesn't need to be a special rule for trucks.
Like anything else: Be aware. Approach carefully. Signal your intentions. Pass. Get over.
It would help if the unprofessional bastards would quit f***ing driving in the middle lane as a default behavior...when nobody is in the right lane, get the f*** over there you ********!
Do people suck at merging? Yes
Will you have to turn your cruise off from time to time when someone doesn't merge correctly? Absolutely
Too bad, get over there anyway.
Also, stop overtaking your fellow-transport drivers...if a guy is doing 104 and you wanna do 105, ask him over the radio if you can pass, don't take up two lanes for 30 minutes trying it.
Suzy can get her mail order shoes a day later, we don't need trucks taking up two good lanes.
Do people suck at merging? Yes
Will you have to turn your cruise off from time to time when someone doesn't merge correctly? Absolutely
Too bad, get over there anyway.
Also, stop overtaking your fellow-transport drivers...if a guy is doing 104 and you wanna do 105, ask him over the radio if you can pass, don't take up two lanes for 30 minutes trying it.
Suzy can get her mail order shoes a day later, we don't need trucks taking up two good lanes.
PLau
Well-known member
You should seriously consider changing your name to faZed.
You'd really benefit from coming out with a professional driver for a day and sitting in the cab with one of us and seeing the realities of all the situations you just complained about.
I'd be happy to explain them here as best as possible if you're of an open mind and are interested in learning.
Explanations aside, trust me, spending a day in our shoes... you'd not ***** and whine so much. 99% of the motoring public have no idea about the realities of both the vehicles we operate as well as the conditions we operate them in. To a good majority of the public we are nothing but a hinderance to their day, since of course, they are the most important person in the world.
There's no connection anymore to the fact that pretty much everything they touched, bought, or ate that day was once on one of these very trucks they're now cursing. **** just magically falls from the sky onto store shelves, ya know.
48Connor
Well-known member
No one's arguing that they aren't important, we all know they are. Just that they are a nuisance to be around.
And calling them professional drivers is really pushing the meaning of professional. I got paid to go to a golf tournament once, thereby I'm a professional golfer.
If these vehicles are so dangerous to be around I'm surprised we allow them on the roads.
Wish we still moved freight long distances by rail and distributed via smaller, more agile, safer single-units. Pipe dream, I know: "just in time" factory operations would never allow for it nowadays, not to mention the loss of the rail infrastructure over the decades of JIT manufacturing philosophy...
Wish we still moved freight long distances by rail and distributed via smaller, more agile, safer single-units. Pipe dream, I know: "just in time" factory operations would never allow for it nowadays, not to mention the loss of the rail infrastructure over the decades of JIT manufacturing philosophy...
Can't have your cake and eat it too.
It's a skill. In the industry when it's discussed, that's the terminology used. Inside the GTA (for those who never venture outside of it) I can see how the term would seem to be a misnomer, but in the grand scheme of things most of us ARE professionals - we don't navigate hundreds of thousands of pounds of vehicle around day in and day out while staying safe and accident free for decades at a time without being a pro, simple as that.
Trains are slow and cumbersome. Put a skid of strawberries in a freight train and it'll take about 7 days to arrive in the store, and that's after being on a truck (in an intermodal can) at the beginning and end anyways.
Put that same skid on a truck and it's delivering direct to the store in 4 days....so the store has 3 more days to try to sell those berries before they go mouldy and get thrown in the dumpster.
Non time sensitive stuff makes sense for rail, however direct truck transportation delivers product straight to the end customer in a much more direct, timely, and simple fashion, and even for non time sensitive items that sometimes wins out. For anything at all that's time sensitive or for which warehousing is not an option because of cost or logistics, trucks win again.
The "we should just put everything on trains" routine is yet another fallacy that people who have little or no idea behind the realities of how the freight industry works like to throw out there. These are the same people that are cursing the same truck on the way home from work that just delivered the groceries they bought at the grocery store 10 minutes before - again, zero connection between the two - **** just falls out of the ceiling, right?
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-D-
Banned
just asking
but why can't most if not all those trucks NOT run during rush hours
I think they would save more gas, wear and tear, and stress.
Also when it's 1am on the 401 heading east to Kingston/Ottawa/Montreal...why the hell are they trying to drag race each other and holding up traffic while the truck in the left lane is crawling along to pass the other truck in the right crawling along (both doing 100km/h).
That don't look PRO to me.
but why can't most if not all those trucks NOT run during rush hours
I think they would save more gas, wear and tear, and stress.
Also when it's 1am on the 401 heading east to Kingston/Ottawa/Montreal...why the hell are they trying to drag race each other and holding up traffic while the truck in the left lane is crawling along to pass the other truck in the right crawling along (both doing 100km/h).
That don't look PRO to me.
And vice versa.
Another common complaint. Totally unrealistic since most truck traffic that passes through Toronto is doing exactly that - passing through.
For those that stop or terminate here, If you operated a warehouse or a store that is normally open traditional business hours only would you want to put on an entire third shift just to handle trucks?
And would you customers who expect your product on a reasonable time frame understand when they don't get it for 2 or 3 extra days because the driver ran out of hours waiting on the outskirts every city waiting for "allowed" hours to drive through? Just the loading process becomes a nightmare - if the truck arrives on the outskirts at, say, 10AM...is it to sit and wait until the "magic hour" when it can enter the city? Reality is the driver is out of hours by that point (after sitting on his hands all day) and can't even GET to your warehouse.
Simply put, the real world doesn't work that way. Freight moves 24/7/365, the end.
Because our wonderful Ontario government, about 10 years or so ago, mandated electronic governing to not more than 105KPH, so we're all stuck with a complete inability to pass each other any faster than what the truck will go. I can hold the pedal to the floor all day long and my current tractor won't go over 101KPH, which is what my fleet sets their trucks at.
So, I come up behind a set of B-trains (at 145,000LBS) with my empty truck (at 40,000LBS). He slows down on each and every knoll in the road because of his weight, and slows down dramatically (to 80 or below) on any sort of decent hill at all, so I want to pass him - I get out there to try as we crest a hill or are on a flat stretch where we're suddenly limited by our governeres again, and blammo...special olympics. Yes, at that point (and I myself routinely do it if I'm the one getting passed) a professional backs out of it and slows down to let the faster (or lighter, weight and all it's effects is something else the general public simply has no comprehension about) truck pass. Unfortunately, yeah, not all drivers are as professional as they could be - it could be that the heavier/slower truck has already played hopscotch with the other truck 3 or 4 times (again, that pesky weight dynamics thing..) and doesn't want to let the faster truck pass only to pass them again on the next downhill.
It's happened to me, and often I'll decide to pull off somewhere to grab a coffee or stretch for a few minutes in order to put some distance between me and another truck I'm tired of playing hopscotch with.
Again, this is all stuff you wouldn't appreciate unless you were in the truck experiencing it. Driving along in your car you have no idea the realities. Most people have never pulled a 10,000# trailer in their lives, much less one that weighted 60,000#, or a set that weighs 120,000#.
While trains are slow (cumbersome is a subjective term) they occupy different space from everything else.
They aren't clogging arterials and multi-lane highways with 100-foot turning circles, vast blindspots, glacial acceleration, braking distances -- note, in amongst vulnerable cagers and motorcyclists -- measured in football fields, destroying asphalt surfaces, shedding parts like wheels and tires and leaving "gators" all over the roads etc.
Heavy trucks are over-represented in fatal crashes. In 2001, trucks accounted for 4% of registered vehicles on Canadian roads but 19% of fatalities. And when a heavy is involved in an serious accident, the victim is rarely the truck driver: "Not surprisingly, most of the deaths (87% of them) and injuries (74% of them) incollisions involving a heavy truck were among people other than the truck occupants.Only 13% of the deaths and 26% of the injuries were to the occupants of a heavytruck." (src)
Now we have articles coming out telling us that driving "near" a tractor-trailer is not safe. Well duh, but hard to do in practice when there are so many of the things plugging up roads.
But yeah, I guess getting trinkets from China and out-of-season veggies makes it all worthwhile.
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