Trucks, page-5

Big bad nasty trucks...everybody hates them, but they all insist on being able to go to Coles any days of the week and buy their groceries!
It is a fact that in far more cases where car drivers are injured or killed when tangling with a heavy vehicle...the car driver is at fault.

A truck weighing in at 42 tonnes, a standard semi trailer, will take 100 metres to stop safely on a dry road in ideal conditions....that is after the driver has reacted and hit the brakes. A B Double at 64 tonnes has more dynamics to deal with and may take a little longer. Once you get to 110 tonne road trains the dynamics are different again.

it must be realised too, that many drivers that are licenced to drive a truck are also not real bright...just like many car drivers...some are very good, some are very average. Don't take your chances dicing with a driver that may be on the lower side of the scale.

And yes, cars disappear in blind spots very easily...it amazes me the number of car drivers that will travel on the left side of a truck beside the cabin area...totally invisible most of the time to the truck driver.

A larger truck's bonnet will totally hide a small to medium sized sedan when in front of the truck, often car drivers try and beat a truck by accelerating up the left side only to swerve in front of the truck, where the first thing the truck driver knows that they have hit something is the smoke pouring from the car tyres as it is pushed sideways up the road.

All large trucks are speed limited to 100kmh, some to 95kmh. Yes the odd driver tampers with the speed limiter but that is an offence that can put a driver in gaol....it is not a regular occurrence these days.

Most truck speedo's are accurate...they are made to be...when you pay $250k for a vehicle you expect the speedo to be accurate. They are because the engine speed is electronically limited to allow the truck to do the pre set road speed in top gear.

Most car speedo's are not accurate. So the average car driver sitting on 100kmh on his speedo is in reality doing anywhere from 92kmh to 95 kmh depending on the car manufacturer tolerances.

So the bloke that sees a B Double sail past him on the freeway is very likely only doing 100kmh....the car is going slower than 100kmh. Easy to check, use a GPS and see what your actual speed is when the speedo indicates 100kmh. +
That said it is easy in a truck to over run downhill and maybe get up to 110 - 115 kmh, but as soon as the truck levels out it is back on the speed limiter.

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