Large Format Vehicles, Moving Violations, and How To Survive Them

I was recently on a six hour road trip to pick up Buttercup (my grand-daughter) the trip has me changing Interstate Highways so often that the directions look like they were lifted from IRS form 1040. Interstate Highways that are all polka-dotted with large vehicles like busses, motor homes (RV’s), dump-trucks, semi-trucks, etcetera (collectively LFV’s). Now, unlike some out there, I am extremely comfortable around the massive commercial vehicles; I did hold a commercial driver’s license (CDL) for over twenty years and have been driving for thirty-eight years. Did you know that if you are hauling passengers in some states, you can be fined for unsecured cargo if those passengers are not buckled up?

Why does having held a CDL make me so comfortable around the big rigs? Well, I know that to hold that license those drivers are all over twenty-one and have had very specialized training and had to pass a brutal two plus hour driving test–longer if they have a hazmat, double trailer, or tank endorsement. A test that requires a special walk around the vehicle–I still do this–to ensure it is safe to take out, a basic skills competency test to park them including parallel parking those things, and then a very long driving test while the examiner is questioning you on random things related to driving the rig like “what was the clearance on that bridge we just passed under?” If you don’t get an “A” in the test you don’t get the license. Oh, and then there are the yearly or every other year physicals that every CDL driver is subjected to, where certain health conditions, and medications automatically cancels your CDL–as do most moving violations.

For me all the drivers of cars, pick-ups, SUVs, RV’s make me very nervous. Anyone over sixteen (in most states) could be behind the wheel, and generally speaking the test is fairly simple. The RV’s really bother me; is that a sixteen-year-old or a ninety-year-old driving that 20,000 plus pound RV? Do they suffer narcolepsy? Is their eyesight corrected? When were its tires last checked? Ever notice RVs are usually the ones really losing speed on hills? Like a lot of speed? How many have you seen driving along with their antenna still deployed, or the air-conditioner cover shattered? (That’s because they don’t watch height markings.)

So here we get into some of the really bad driving I saw on the trip, and yes Buttercup pointed out a few of them:

Tailgating:

Everyone should know that tailgating in general is a really bad idea, but on my recent trip I actually saw someone almost bump drafting a tractor trailer. No joke they were close enough to the trailer I could have picked out the wrench to remove the Mansfield bar, climbed out on the hood of their car, and started removing it! Yes, that funny looking bumper wanna be under the back of a trailer has a name and was mandated when the driver of Jane Mansfield put her car under the back of a trailer at speed.

The dangers of tailgating an LFV are:

If the vehicle hits their brakes hard you could as mentioned above run under the vehicle in front of you–the Mansfield Bar is not perfect especially with modern low profile, aerodynamic, crumple zone, automobiles.

If the large vehicle suddenly swerves be it on purpose or by a wind gust the slipstream you are in could drag you and sling you to the side.

No time to react to debris that passes beneath the LFV but won’t pass below your car.

The old rule of thumb is to back off 10 feet for every 10 miles per hour (MPH) from the back of the vehicle you are following. In the case of 70 MPH that is the length of a typical tractor trailer. Obviously if you are also hauling a heavy load back off some more as your load will cause you to take longer to stop too.

Riding beside a large vehicle:

First rule DON’T! Why not, you ask? Trailers roll over in the wind and or get “loose” without warning. What is getting “loose”? That is when the trailer’s tires fail to maintain adequate grip with the road surface, and can be caused by moisture on the road–like driving through a Texas thunderstorm outside Amarillo and your trailer hydroplanes and the wind pushes the trailer so far to the left you can clearly see the back half of your trailer in the rearview mirror when you don’t normally see it at all in there, sand, or other debris on the road, wind, or even a light load allowing the trailer to lift as it is being towed. I have had this happen, I was passing a slower moving semi-truck with my Asto van while towing my own trailer full of camping gear, the wind hit the semi and blew the trailer toward me in the left lane, my automatic reaction was to slam the brakes which was good because as I was not far behind the back of the semi-trailer when it slid all the way into the spot I and my family had just been!

Tires on trucks explode! Trust me you do not want to be next to a massive truck tire when it blows out–yes I have been close to one once and I don’t want to relive that–I was driving a low profile classic sports car at the time and the truck I was passing had a trailer tire blow right as I was just clear of the wheel. I have also had a trailer tire blowout on me, and trust me the trailer lets you know rather quickly but not before anything to your side is pelted with bits of rubber and steel belts.

Believe it or not the visibility from a truck cab is awful! The left side is not too bad but the right side? Nothing, if someone is on your right as a driver you really don’t know and is why so many trucks have a “Christmas tree” of mirrors on the right front corner as they attempt to cover that massive blind spot.

All those red areas in the picture above are places the driver cannot see you!

Passing an LFV:

Never on the right side! In most states this is illegal to start with, but in every state it just is not safe as again the driver does not know you are there.

Ease over to the left side of the lane so you are hugging the left line a bit, this puts a bit of a gap between you and the main slipstream of the truck and trailer and if you drive a light vehicle–like a motorcycle–it keeps you from being pulled closer to the rig by said slipstream.

Plan to accelerate hard! Seriously, your goal is to get past them in a hurry so you are not in a blind spot if the driver has to move over for some reason. If that truck is doing 65 MPH you should plan to hit 80 MPH to get past them in a reasonable amount of time.

Do not pull back over before you can see where the LFV’s front tires contact the pavement in your rearview mirror–not the side mirrors, the one on your windshield. If you are not that far ahead the driver of that rig can’t see you, and if for some reason you have to hit the brakes you will suddenly have 80,0000 pounds of truck in your car with what is left of you.

When passing an LFV that is stopped on the side of the road, move a lane to the left, even a small car makes enough of a slip stream to rock a vehicle on the shoulder. You also don’t know if someone is going to come around the front of the vehicle a bit distracted from whatever has them there and step too far out and into the road.

Well now that I’ve written this, it is again time to road-trip with Buttercup, take her home, and swing back home myself. So, how many more moving violations will we see this time?