Street sweeper dust causes accident on Highway 1

[johnboy27]

Originally posted by 93VR6


No way buddy was speeding, most trucks are limited to 106 km/h and where I work we have trucks that are unlimited and with a light load 10,000ish lbs they top out just under 120. In this case where the semi was cresting a hill I would be willing to bet he couldn't have been speeding even if he wanted to.

as for "Semi drivers drive like assholes" have you ever driven one?

I agree with most of this although most trucks are not turned down here in Alberta. Some of the big trucking outfits are turned down to 100-110. That said, most trucks cannot keep chugging along full speed up and kind of hill with a loaded trailer.
I think that in the situation where they are street sweaping and traffic may be travelling at high speed near them they should have a water truck soaking down the sand they are sweeping. That is the norm in most other provinces.
I have been in the situation of a complete whiteout due to a snow plow plowing back drifts and it was a pretty scary situation and I was lucky that the drivers in front of me didn't jam on the brakes when they hit the white out.

[ryder_23]

Originally posted by ercchry


really?

so you are driving a large heavy truck that takes LOTS of time to slow down... you crest a hill and all of a sudden you are greeted with a cloud of dusk... in that dusk you attempt to slow and keep your truck in your lane as to not takeout oncoming traffic... and then, bam you hit the tail end of a smaller suv that rapidly slowed as soon as they saw the dusk

i dunno... doesnt seem like his fault to me

Rear ended him...seems to be at fault. Based on what were told, driver in front slowed down, truck driver kept on trucking.

Driver slowed down based on conditions, truck driver did not. On coming traffic? Wasn't it highway 1 by Canmore? Thought it was divided highway.

And yes a truck driver, driving a truck that takes LOTS of time to slow down, should be taking caution ALL the time, especially when cresting a hill, and when seeing a cloud of DUSK!!!! lol

Edit: Not slow down before a hill if you don't understand, take simple precautions. ie: Pay the fuck attention for whatever can be over that hill. Shit I thought that was common sense even on a sport bike, which you have owned.

[arian_ma]

Originally posted by ryder_23
Edit: Not slow down before a hill if you don't understand, take simple precautions. ie: Pay the fuck attention for whatever can be over that hill. Shit I thought that was common sense even on a sport bike, which you have owned.

Difference between a sport bike and a truck is that the truck most likely does not have the power to be speeding up a hill. If it was me, I would have immediately put on the flashers if I wanted to slow down considerably.

[Feruk]

Originally posted by Type_S1
Semi-drivers drive like assholes...it sucks it has to end in an accident.

This trucker should lose his license. You travel as fast as the road permits...the trucker was most likely speeding like most do and blaming all the other vehicles on the road.

Most likely speeding? Spoken like someone who does not spend a lot of time on the highways. I'm on Highway 2 anywhere from 2 to 6 days of the week, and would say I only see MAYBE 1 in 5 truckers max going more then 120km/h. Most stay close to the speed limit.

[swak]

Originally posted by Feruk


Most likely speeding? Spoken like someone who does not spend a lot of time on the highways. I'm on Highway 2 anywhere from 2 to 6 days of the week, and would say I only see MAYBE 1 in 5 truckers max going more then 120km/h. Most stay close to the speed limit.

This.

Of all traffic on the roads, truck drivers are the drivers i have the most respect for.
I dont see where you get the idea "truck drivers are assholes" - care to enlighten me on how you think this? They seem pretty calm to me for cars cutting in front of them all the time, etc...

[johnboy27]

It's because most of the guys on here have never driven anything like a truck and have no idea the challenges involved.

[ercchry]

Originally posted by johnboy27
It's because most of the guys on here have never driven anything like a truck and have no idea the challenges involved.

most i have drove is a 5 ton loaded up with water, that was more than enough for me.

the other week we were trapped in the pass going into golden, chatted with a few truckers and some of their stories are nuts

[racerjim]

I picked up a truck this past winter that this happened to but it was a 2 lane highway passing a snowplow throwing up a huge could. The semi pulled out to pass when he couldn't see past the plow and nailed a new 2500 chev head on. Sorry to say the driver never got out, more then likely he never saw it coming either. The rad was jammed in the firewall which was pushed back a foot or more.

I've got pics if anyone is interested.

Be careful out there and if you cant see. its not worth the risk.

[alloroc]

I drove into a flurry of dawn this morning. Hated it.

[Jay911]

Proportionally speaking, there are just as many flaky truck drivers as there are flaky "four-wheelers" on the road. I have video of a guy hauling a refrigerated van who just about drove over a compact car and a pickup truck at the Highway 8 x 22 roundabout, if the car driver hadn't realized that the trucker was going to blow the yield sign and drive into the roundabout (you must yield to traffic already in the circle, regardless of how big your vehicle is or how long it'll take to stop it). The car jammed on the brakes and the semi just blasted on through, never getting below about 40 km/h. I've seen countless roll-overs at the 1 x 22 interchange caused by careless semi-truck drivers taking the EB->SB ramp way too fast and rolling over. One guy cooked through there so hot that he drove thru the grass verge, up onto the SB lanes of 22 way north of where the ramp joins the highway, laid his truck over on the K-rails (breaking two of them) and slid down along them until his trailer wrapped around the sign post holding an overhead sign for the NB lanes. In both these same locations, I have also seen people in everything from Smart Cars to lifted trucks hauling horse trailers do some pretty idiotic things as well, like pulling a U-turn directly in front of traffic and getting T-boned, or driving straight through the roundabout and ripping the front wheels off their ultra-luxury SUV.

There is no shortage of moron drivers no matter what size of vehicle they drive or how long they've driven it, or whether or not they get paid to do so. So take the "professional truckers are gods and can do no wrong and you're just an ignorant four-wheeler" talk and shove it.

[Rat Fink]

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[Jay911]

Originally posted by Rat Fink
I just love how you have to put your two bits in against truck drivers every chance you get.

I point it out every chance I get because, inevitably as these discussions come up, truckers come out of the woodwork every chance they get to claim that every last one of them is a perfect driver with X million miles without so much as a speeding ticket.

Here's the crux of it: As soon as truckers admit they aren't the shining knights of the road they have so long claimed to be, I'll stop going on about how they're not the shining knights of the road they have so long claimed to be.

Originally posted by Rat Fink
You know it's true, most people don't have a clue what it takes to drive a larger vehicle.

Most people don't have a clue what it takes to drive a vehicle period. It's not endemic to truck drivers nor to passenger vehicle drivers. This is blatantly evident in everyday life - from the 200+ crashes Calgary gets every time a hint of precipitation hits the roads to the TV series dedicated to showing us just how awful Canadian drivers are, eight at a time. I've had, ages ago, a kid in a Jeep run into me from behind at a downtown Calgary intersection hard enough to total my car, a 1980s Pontiac Bonneville - which required a hell of a hard hit. His excuse was he didn't think I was going to stop - despite the fact I was making a turn from a marked turn lane and the crosswalk was full. I've myself racked up a car hitting a deer at 100 km/h. I've been in at least one at-fault accident myself I can recall over the past 20+ years (which in itself, if we're whipping out dicks and measuring driving experience in distance, ends up being over 750,000 km - nothing to sneeze at for a "four-wheeler" driver) - luckily without injury. No one is immune from having HUA syndrome once in a while. This includes pedestrians, car drivers, light truck drivers, and to your immense consternation, truckers.

The biggest thing that pisses me off about this kind of argument is the truck drivers who, as I said earlier, come out of the woodwork to defend their brethren when things go wrong, treating "four-wheeler" as if it's a derogatory term, and acting as if truckers somehow deserve a pass on shitty driving because of the fact they spend more time on the road and/or have less dramas while doing so, proportionally speaking. The trucker mentality that they have more right to the road than anyone else and deserve special consideration/entitlement is something that has to stop.

As for whether or not I feel slighted to be not "let in to the trucker club" - doesn't bother me in the least. I've worked around the trucking industry prior to nailing down my career, and I have no desire to be a part of it. One of the primary reasons is the holier-than-thou attitude that truckers are always perfect and "four-wheelers" are always wrong. The other is a total disregard for other users of the road and its facilities. Ever stopped at the Jumping Pound Petro-Canada? Sometimes you take your life in your hands to try to use the washroom after a day's worth of truckers has been through it. Not to mention the fact that they park 4 abreast across Township Road 245A (directly in front of the gas pumps), and have for years, despite the no parking signs posted all through that area and the parking lot provided exclusively for trucks around back. Face it - you might be a great driver and courteous to a fault, but a huge amount of people in your profession are complete asshats. Just like in every other job in the world.

[Rat Fink]

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[clem24]

Originally posted by Rat Fink


I'm not defending the guy at all. Not once in my post did I defend this driver. What I am defending are all the good truck drivers out there that don't deserve the blanket statements that "all truck drivers are assholes" made by people who wouldn't even be able to drive a truck through Claresholm

I think you are taking his comments out of context.. He said there's bad apples driving everything but truckers stand out because they won't admit they're bad drivers if they happen to be.

I had a case recently dealing with a Calgary Transit but driver. He had the nerve to open his door and tell me I turned into the wrong turn lane downtown. I didn't, and even pointed out the white dotted lines. Of course, he in his bus couldn't see the dotted lines, and then he proceeded to tell me he's been driving for 25 years and that he's always right. LOL I didn't even bother.

I like Jay's posts. Gives a different perspective to everything (i.e. usually fact vs. everyone else's opionion hahaha).

[ercchry]

im just arguing for physics...

small car crests hill... sees dust, brakes

large truck crests hill... sees dust at same point in road, brakes slower than small car... conclusion? crash!

[johnboy27]

Originally posted by Rat Fink


I'm not defending the guy at all. Not once in my post did I defend this driver. What I am defending are all the good truck drivers out there that don't deserve the blanket statements that "all truck drivers are assholes" made by people who wouldn't even be able to drive a truck through Claresholm

Yeah this. God only knows if this driver of the truck wasn't paying attention but there is a possibility it just happened too fast. Maybe there were no signs of a sweeper working just over the crest of the hill. Chances are though that if the cloud of dust was that big that the driver couldn't see threw it then he should have been able to see it as he was climbing the hill and if nothing else been curious and therefor expecting that maybe something was up.
I don't know, I always try to look far enough ahead so as tobe prepared for something of this nature but you never know what is going to happen I suppose.

[johnboy27]

Originally posted by ercchry
im just arguing for physics...

small car crests hill... sees dust, brakes

large truck crests hill... sees dust at same point in road, brakes slower than small car... conclusion? crash!

True but due to being a proffesional driver the truck driver should always be expecting something. With a cloud of dust so large as to cover the road completely the driver should have been able to see it while climbing the hill( possibly not though).