Ideal Speed While Travelling Downhill.

Hi I'm looking for an explanation on what is the ideal speed while travelling downhill with a loaded trailer. (53 feet) The routes would I-71 N, CARROLTON, KY (between CARROLTON county and PRESTONVILLE ENGLISH Exit 43. I have a few guys going at 80 mph, the posted speed is 70 mph ( I believe it's lower for trucks). I'm just looking for a proper explanation to give to my drivers who are not ready to accept that they need slow down before hitting the downhill. Please advice. Thank you

Depends on the road conditions, traffic conditions, total weight, length of grade, type of load, your experience, and common sense.

Don't worry about everyone else. Drive your own truck as you see fit.

"You can go down a hill too slow 100 times, but you can only go down a hill too fast once."

Hi I'm looking for an explanation on what is the ideal speed while travelling downhill with a loaded trailer. (53 feet) The routes would I-71 N, CARROLTON, KY (between CARROLTON county and PRESTONVILLE ENGLISH Exit 43. I have a few guys going at 80 mph, the posted speed is 70 mph ( I believe it's lower for trucks). I'm just looking for a proper explanation to give to my drivers who are not ready to accept that they need slow down before hitting the downhill. Please advice. Thank you

Are you a company's Safety Officer? Like PackRat above said, it depends on many things.

One of them tho is company policy. My company had 75 mph trucks. However, with speeding tickets, the insurance company said to cut it back to 72 mph. The company also said warnings will be given for over 78 mph (3) and 80 mph (1). When a driver goes beyond the warnings (with lessons from Training) they are terminated.

Laura

Welcome. Your post leads me to believe your in charge of some drivers. That stretch of road isn’t real bad, however 80 down it is a bit out of bounds in my opinion. The obvious answer is whatever speed is posted for trucks and road/weather conditions. As packrat said there are many factors above and beyond the legal limits.

My company had a speeding problem and they installed a program called Speedgauge. They have a tiered progressive discpline policy for violations. However one item is automatic, hitting 80 mph. No questions your terminated.

Hope this helps a bit.

Pj says

My company had a speeding problem and they installed a program called Speedgauge.

My employer also utilizes Speedgauge. The way they have it set up is anything 4 mph or higher above the posted speed limit is recorded. If you are flagged for speeding for more than 5 consecutive minutes its flagged so the company can look into it. There are many stretches of roads we travel that speed limits have gone up but GPS the data is taken from hasn't been updated yet. They're able to go through and sometimes virtually "drive" that stretch using google maps to see what the posted speed is and also see if most of our drivers are being flagged there to indicate its outdated information. If my management deem it not accurate they don't include that in the calculations. For us, if 3% or more of our total time is spent speeding we're written up. 3 in a rolling year period is termination.