Comments By Partagas

Then what would you use to write your name in the snow?

Great questions Miss Mioshi - I'm not a driver yet (start CDL school in 10 days), but I'll un-retire some of my cop and accident investigation experience and help with a couple.

#2 Cruise Control & Engine Brake Regarding the use of cruise control and/or engine brake in reduced traction situations, they can both cause your drives to loose traction. If cruise control is engaged and the vehicle hits a slippery stretch, the drives which are constantly working to maintain set speed can break loose - lose traction with the roadway - and begin to spin. The vehicle will begin to slow, yet the cruise control system will continue to meet set speed as measured at the drives. So assume the cruise is set to 62 mph and the truck encounters an icy bridge deck (an incredibly common accident type for vehicles running on cruise in freezing conditions). The drives loose traction on the black ice and the vehicle overall - meaning the steers and tandems - may slow to 58 mph while the drives are still maintaining the 62 mph set speed. The result is an acceleration skid by the drives and loss of lateral control. And, a skidding (or spinning) tire always has less traction than a rolling tire and will try to "pass" the rolling tire with more traction = tractor jackknife. Newer cruise control units on 4-wheelers with ABS are able to compensate for this somewhat, but not completely. Ever notice how many cars spin out on bridge decks and typically hit the ditch or median rear-wheels first just past the bridge (if they don't ricochet off the guardrail and back into traffic in front of you). I don't know about heavy truck cruise control and its ability to prevent this.

Engine brakes - or radically downshifting any vehicle - has the opposite effect but same result. When the engine brake activates, it's using the engine as a brake on just the drives. If the road is slippery - or even on dry pavement if the engine braking force is greater than the road surface - tire coefficient of friction, the drives can go into a brake skid. Think of the engine brake as a brake on just your drives - the engine braking effect takes the place of the brake pedal or lever - the result is the same. If the drives are turning slower than the vehicle overall, they will break loose and brake skid. And, as they now have less traction than the steers, they will try to pass the steers. The tractor is now pushed by the inertia of the trailer as Patrick explained, which is still moving at a speed greater than the drives are turning = tractor jackknife.

Errol's advice is the same as we were given in many trips to advanced & emergency driving school over the years: the rule of thumb is slow down to where you can see the texture of the road surface. The tread depth and design of your tires, amount of rain, road surface, and speed all combine to reduce the coefficient of friction below that of the ideal dry roadway. We have no practical way to measure this while driving, and of those factors the only one we can control as drivers is speed, so slowing down is our best defense.

#5 Alcohol in Cab: Regarding alcohol in the cab, Rick is right - DOT regs prohibit it while on-duty. You generally wouldn't run afoul of state open container laws with the sealed containers in your example, but DOT regs take precedent.

#8 Deer whistles: we ran these on our squad cars in northern Minnesota. Our experience is that they didn't chase or scare deer away, they could cause deer to stop and look at you so that their eyes reflected your headlights giving you a chance to avoid them. I'm not aware of any studies or analysis - that's just our experience with them.

Sorry for the long-winded response - feel free to skip all of this. I probably should have said that up front...

That's all I can help with - Take care and drive safe all. Don

Here's part of an 2014 Truckinginfo.com article - not sure if this is what your trainer's experiencing:

We have heard reports of shorter-than-expected steer-axle brake drum life and of noisy, chattering brakes on trucks equipped to meet the shorter stopping distance requirements that went into effect in August 2011. Some of those models would now be coming up on a reline interval, while others may now require brake service where historically there was none. Briefly, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration mandated that a tractor-trailer traveling at 60 mph must come to a complete stop in 250 feet, versus the old standard of 355 feet. The first trucks the rule applied to were three-axle tractors with a gross vehicle weight rating of 59,600 pounds — or just about every line-haul truck in the country. Fleet exposure to the symptoms seems to be tied to the OE and their choice of brake supplier. Bendix and Meritor, for example, both report that changes they made to their lining formulations and brake designs to meet the reduced stopping distance rules are manifesting themselves on some customer trucks as chattering noises, and in other cases as shortened lining and/or drum life. “The problem is you’ve got these big brakes on the front axle, but they are ‘underutilized’ in normal conditions,” explains Frank Gilboy, product manager of aftermarket brake shoes at Bendix Spicer Foundation Brake. “If there’s insufficient heat to condition the brake properly, they will glaze and they will develop some noise and chatter.” It’s nothing to worry about from a performance perspective, they say, but an unintended and perhaps irritating consequence of the rule change. “Fleets are seeing linings glaze up because they aren’t being worked hard enough,” says Jim Reis, vice president and general manager of Stemco’s Brake Products division. “That’s causing noise and vibration in as little as three months after the truck goes into service. Typically front brakes ran the life of the vehicle, if not for rust-jacking. Now we find they need attention because of the glazing problem. It’s not so much a matter of [truck owners] wearing the brakes out, but just being dissatisfied with the day-to-day performance.”

Greetings Keith and welcome aboard. I'm pretty new here myself, but like you have found this site to be an excellent resource for considering a new career (retired LEO myself). There's a few former LEO's on this site looking for their next career. Thanks for your service and good luck on your new career path. Don

Cold War - I was a cop for 33 years and did allot of traffic law enforcement in that time and I don't have a clue as to what happened here, given the circumstances you shared. To make a traffic stop and never go up to talk with the driver is highly irregular. Even if the officer realized an error or changed their mind, I would still expect some contact with and explanation to you. The only thing I can suggest is, was it possible the officer issued some direction such as releasing you from the stop using their hailer/PA system that you weren't able to hear due to engine & highway noise levels? While not preferred, I've observed some officers to do that. Otherwise, I got nothin'.

Well, it's been a good couple of weeks! I passed the HAZMAT endorsement test on the first attempt a couple of weeks ago - thanks to the High Road. I applied and was fingerprinted for the TSA HAZMAT background check this morning and received a pre-hire from Roehl this afternoon. The only speed-bump so far is that my first choice in CDL schools is booked until June while I'm ready to go in late March. My Roehl recruiter indicated their CDL program is booking for April right now and there's also another local option with earlier training dates. So, things are moving forward.

My Roehl recruiter commented on how prepared and ahead of the game I am and I gave credit to this website and the High Road Training Program. He was pleased to hear how highly regarded Roehl is by members of this site as well. He's been a great help and a wealth of information regarding their company.

So, thanks again to Brett and everybody for sharing your experience and expertise with us. I hope to be able to pay it back and pay it forward if/when I have something to contribute.

Don

Congrats!

We're in Chicago right now - visiting our daughter. Our favorite pizza here is Giordano's. Geno's and Pizzaria Uno are good too.

Great replies! I'm so glad to hear everyone loves the off-duty personal driving still. I expect I will as well but had to ask. There's just nothing better than a long drive!

What I'm wondering is if driving 2000 - 3000+ miles per week for work lessens your enjoyment of personal/family road trips? One of my great sources of pleasure and relaxation these past 30+ years has been getting out on good drives. One of our best family vacations ever involved driving over 4000 miles in 8 days (MN to Las Vegas and back in a circuitous route). I love to drive and see the country. While that's part of the attraction of driving professionally, I'd be sad if it resulted in my not wanting to take personal road trips anymore. So, I'm curious as to what you've experienced - does driving professionally make you dislike or avoid driving for fun on days off?