Does anyone else here seem to notice that semi-truck drivers are becoming more and more idiotic?
My girl and I spent the week in LI visiting her family. We take 87N from Westchester Cty all the way to Albany. If you’ve never been on this stretch, it is mostly a two lane highway.
On our way home traffic was moving at it’s normal pace, 75ish. We get to a certain point and all of a sudden traffic is doing 60 in the passing lane. I look ahead and there is some truck driver with noone in front of him doing 60 in the passing lane. I deal with it for about 5 minutes, thinking maybe he just needs to get by some cars in the slow lane. But no, he keeps in the passing lane.
So, I switch to the slow lane and speed up when I see an opening to get in front of him. I speed up and get a car length in front of him, there was a space between him and a Honda Civic that was plenty big enough. So I hit the turn signal before I even move to let him know I am going to merge. But instead he downshifts and closes the gap so that now I can’t fit in, and I am approaching slower cars in the slow lane.
This is where it gets good. The guy in the civic see’s what is going on and slams on his brakes, he motions me in, and I give him a friendly wave. I look back only to see him slow down to about 55. He rolls down his windows and him and his passengers all start flipping the truck driver off, giving him hell. It was great at the time because I was fuming.
It’s not just this incident that gets me, its that fact that I see it all the time. Trucks doing 60 in the passing lane and not moving over. Trucks switching out of the slow lane because someone is changing a tire only to push everyone in the passing lane onto the shoulder. These guys need to get their heads checked…
What’s worse is TWO truckers doing the same speed (usually like 65) side by side (probably while chatting on the radio). Pisses me off.
The passing lane should be for anyone who is doing more than 75mph. Period. If you aren’t doing 75mph or more, stay the hell out of that lane unless you absolutely need to pass someone. Why can’t half of America drive like people do on the Autobahns?
I drive 60 miles a day 5 days a week for the past 8 years on the thruway. I see it all, EVERY DAY. No lie, every day, I see retarded truckers, idiot drivers almost causing accidents, and just generaly stupidity… every ride in and out of work.
What pisses me off the most, and like Ilya said, truckers stopping all traffic behind them going side by side. I uderstand going up a hill if one has more momentum and has to move over to try to pass, and doesnt want to loose the momentum he has… and they equal out at the crest of the hill or going up it and get side by side… fine. But when its flat or down a hill, there is NO excuse for it at all. Grab another gear and get the fuck ahead or slow down and get behind.
My best trucker story is when i was in the jetta a year or so ago. fucker was in the left lane, again no cars in the right lane where he should have been. I pull up behind him and move over a little bit to the left rumble strip so he can see me in the mirror and maybe move over like he should. NOPE. I give it half a mile and say fuck it, drop a gear and swing it to the right and start to pass him, mother fucker starts moving over to the right shile I am about to the second axle, no blinkers or anything, and I can see him looking at me in the mirror with a grin on his face. I look ahead and there is road signs comeing up to drop to 55. So I say fuck that and hit the brakes and slow down to get back behind him. (If i stayed on the gas, I would be doing over 100 to get a head of him and no sense in endangering workers or getting a MAJOR X2 speed ticket in a work zone.)
So I get back behind him, and we slow down to 55. as he gets to the work zone, he moves over to the right finally. I put my blinker on to pass him on the left. AGAIN the ass hole waits for me to slowly get along side of him and he looks at me in the mirror and give the trailer a swing, right infront of all the orange barrels and luckly no workers. I had to crank it so hard so he didnt hit me, I had to crank it between 2 barrels and keep from hitting the jersy barrior and the barrels!
Then finally got ahead of the mother fucker. Back up to speed, I pulled in ahead of him, oppened the sun roof and grabed the first thing I could find, threw a 3/8" ratchet out the sun roof, it hit the front of his cab, I saw grill plastic go flying off and I am sure it dented the cab good… hopefully hit the windshield, but I was already in 3rd and gone so there was no chance that moron got my plates.
Truckers are awesome, they can do whatever the fuck they want, I don’t give a shit. Their truck is bigger than your shitty civic hatchback. If you can’t get around a truck fast enough, your car is too slow.
I don’t usually have issues with them unless they are side by side like I mentioned above. Otherwise, I will go by them. Power of the car is not the issues, it’s them hanging side by side for miles and miles doing the speed limit or less.
This is very much true, it’s also for safety reasons.
You guys can bitch about truckers all you want, you have no idea of the pressure and stress an operator of one of those vehicle goes through.
Both KrazyKid and I (I was the safety manager for the facility) worked with 60+ CDL drivers on a daily basis. I would always recommend a driver to merge into a faster lane if someone is broke down on the side of the road, I could care less if he slowed down 100+ cars to 60 mph, it’s better than him hitting and killing someone.
I have no problem with them moving over. I do the same thing when passing anyone or anything on the shoulder unless there is a car next to me and I can’t. It’s out of respect for the people on the side of the road and their safety.
Ok and that makes sense when there is noone in the left lane. But when you have two or three cars traveling alongside a trailer and the ass moves over into the left lane pushing those cars onto the shoulder, ive even seen cars go on the grass because of this, just to give some guy room to change a tire. There is no logic there. Endanger the welfare of three to help one. Give me a fucking break. And I dont care how hard you think they work, nothing justifies purposely blcoking traffic without cause.
I always wait until there is no one along side the trucks, then blast around them. I get nervous as fuck next to them, I was off in the grass once, because a truck just decided to move over for no reason. I try to be the nice guy, I usually just stay behind, and I give them the lights on/off, if they want to move over.
EVERYONE on the road should be paying attention. The correct way for this scenario to play out would be this. There are for example 5 cars involved. One pulled over, hazards on changing the tire, the truck and 3 cars along side the truck.
It is everyone’s responsibility to pay attention and take responsibility into their own hands on the road. The truck should put his blinker on to “ask for permission” to move over. The lead car on the side of the truck should be paying attention far enough down the road to see the tire changer, and have enough brains to punch it to give room to the truck to move over PRIOR to reaching the tire changer. Car #2 in line either hits the gas and follows the lead car to give room, or hits the brakes to slow down and start to let the truck pull in in front of them PRIOR to the tire changer. Car #3 should hit the damn brakes. at this point 3 cars bumper to bumper to bumper would put that last car around the ass end of a 52’ trailer. no way should he be the dick and hit the gas to try to out run the truck… especially if car #2 hit the brakes to slow him and car 3 down to let the truck over.
BUT you know people are A: Oblivious B: Impatient C: Irrational and D: inconsiderate. so the above rarely plays out.
I see it all the time, ass holes try to punch it to cock block a 20 ton 52’ hunk of steel rolling along side of them in a 3,300lb 16 foot long car. Sorry but if you mess with the bull, don’t bitch when you get the horns.
ANNND. people should know how to deal with the above situation, becasue not only is it usefull to avoide killing a tire changer, truckers MUST do this to give a clear lane to police pulling over a car, they can get a ticket for blowing by a cop in the far left lane. ANND alot of truck companies have a zero tolerance rule, no points on your lic, or you could loose your job. Sorry but if I were driving truck feeding my family, and 3 assholes didnt payattention and have the decency to move over so I couldnt move over not to by a cop in the far left lane, I wouldnt chance the ticket, and I would kindly force my way over.
Ok well that post makes no sense…they are trying to save fuel and you want them to raise the speed of the limiters, if my math is correct then they wont be saving fuel like they want too.
“If you don’t live life on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.”
How does it not make sense? I’ve seen some truckers pushing 80 consistently (which is great because they aren’t impeding the rest of the traffic). If they want to save fuel, setting their trucks to 70 would still be a win-win for everyone (they aren’t slow as hell and company saves gas money).