Driving And Handling An Automatic In Mountains, Downgrades Etc.

I forgot to mention the most important thing. Use your brain to judge what you need to do. Some grades go straight down and straight up. Others are twisty, windy. Most trucks pass me on the way down. I like breathing. Take your time. I was lucky when I was with my trainer. We went through PA several times. The hills there are what he called dragon flies. You drag up the hill and fly down. Now you have the advice Prime gives. That and what your trainer says. Stay safe and good luck.

You have Burt Reynolds sun glasses? That's kind of scary too!

I put the Jake's on high and point the truck down hill........use the trolley break to bleed off some speed

Wow! Did that come straight from the Smokey & The Bandit Driving School? That's like straight out of the 70's. I just had this sudden urge to grow huge sideburns and a mustache and put on the Burt Reynold's shades.

Big Scott, we love ya, but you come up with some scary stuff once in a while.

Way back in the day, when most of the trucks on the road were owner operators, people would commonly use the trolley brake to slow the truck because the driver owned the tractor but not the trailer. So they'd use the trailer brakes to save their own brakes. Of course some of them killed themselves or burned up their trucks in a brake fire trying this method, but that didn't stop others from trying it. Obviously to this day that horrendous idea is still floating around.

Never, ever use the trolley brake for going down mountains. There is absolutely no advantage to doing that and you're risking over-heating the trailer brakes. Once you overheat the trailer brakes there is no way to slow down the truck using just the tractor brakes, not that you'd want to because that is also dangerous as hell!

OMG I'm hyperventilating.