Well the wizards in Washington are doing it again... I hope I am wrong but from what I hear, the national speed limit is about to be lifted. That is great and I figure it is about time. The problem is, trucks are going to have their limit dropped back to 55...
Now let's think about that for just a minute or two.. I figure that either the genius who thought this out has never driven in his entire life or he has and knows exactly what he is doing..
On the one hand maybe he really likes truck drivers and is trying to help us out..The results will get ugly but maybe his heart is in the right place. If all of the trucks are doing 55 and the rest of the traffic is doing 70 and cutting back and forth in front of each other then several things will happen. One, there will be a lot more accidents which will drastically cut down on the number of 4 wheelers we have to deal with. Most of these accidents will be caused by people trying to work their way out from behind us, see last article, and will therefore not affect us, unless we happen to be looking in our mirrors and stop to see if we can apply bandages and stuff. Atleast we cannot be legally blamed for an accident that happens behind us right??
One logical solution, at least from Californias' view point is to trap us in the right hand lane with all of the on and off ramps.. This will do almost the same as above since only about 1 out of 5 cars knows how to merge properly. The other 4 have the "matching traffic speed" down perfectly; they just havn't figured out that you have to match speed in front or back of that big truck, instead of right beside it...That part is going to get a lot of 4 wheelers and some of us killed because they will be trying to drive under the trailer like they already do, only now we will be forbidden from moving out of their way..
I often make sarcastic remarks about the "SAFE DRIVERS" on the road. What I mean by safe drivers are the people who insist on traveling 5 miles under the posted speed limit while the rest of the traffic is traveling 15 miles an hour over the speed limit.. Whenever one of those "SAFE DRIVERS" is involved in an accident, it is the fault of the speeding motorist. It does not matter that the safe driver was the only car out of 50 being SAFE, the accident cannot be his fault because he was driving SAFELY..... I bring this up because now all of us truck drivers will be the safe drivers and cannot be at fault no matter how many people kill themselves on our back bumper...
Maybe the WIZARD in washington actually hates truck drivers and just wants to slow us down so that he can get to work without being held up by those Damned Trucks I just hope that his wife and kids are not some of the passengers in that car that tops the hill behind me to find out too late that I am traveling 15 to 20 miles an hour slower than they are....I wonder what laws would change after that? Something to make it harder on the truck driver I am sure...
My point is, if we are going to be traveling down the same road, doesn't it make sense for us to be traveling the same speed? I would love to see a truckers freeway built alongside every existing freeway and not allow anything but trucks on it but until that happens, let's use our heads. OKAY??!!
© December 1995 Keith A. Hamblin