Well, that escalated quickly.
A modest proposal to keep trucks in the right lane on Interstates — you know, like they do in Europe — has thousands of people calling for my death.
Well, maybe that’s a little harsh.
But they are demanding that I go get my CDL or something and spend years driving a tractor-trailer so I can understand their suffering.
Which I ain’t gonna do.
The comments on R&T’s Facebook page are a real-life realization of every latte-sipping Bay Area psuedo-intellectual’s cherished blue-collar stereotypes. Thousands of aggrieved truckers telling me that staying in the right lane would lead to untold death and carnage — never mind that such is not the case where the law keeps trucks to the right. Wives and girlfriends of truckers calling me every name in the book and then ejaculating long uninterrupted mega-paragraphs of country-music paeans to their hard-workin’ menfolk. Rednecks asking me to fight them. There are even people suggesting that the fact that I drive a six-cylinder Accord virtually proves my love of chuggin’ the old man-penis.
I don’t mind the abuse. When you write something for public consumption, you should expect public response. In fact, I welcome every opinion and every reader I can get, even all the people who swear they’re canceling their subscriptions. I just wish I could get people to read the article and respond to what I’m saying, rather than to their own internal low-resolution view of it.
As an example, I wrote that “When you consider the sleep deprivation and drug use to which truckers often fall victim, the argument for keeping them out of the way and restricting them to a lower speed becomes nearly unassailable.” The first response to this?
Wow, THAT was retarded! In the 15 years I drove tractor/trailer, I never once used drugs, I never had an accident, and I saw the biggest morons in four wheelers pull some really idiotic maneuvers the even Ripley wouldn’t believe! Take for instance, the woman driving with one leg on the dash, and the other on the door. I’d call that STUPID! How about the jerk, who wanted to pass trucks in the construction zone? He was driving INSIDE the cones, where fortunately, no construction workers standing. I’d call that STUPID! How about the everyday DOUCHBAG, who passes the trucks that are in the RIGHT LANE, then pulls 2 inches in front of them to get off at that exit (and you can’t tell me YOU haven’t done that a few hundred times mr. jackoff baruth)? Takes a lot of intelligence to be that STUPID! Here’s a thought, Why don’t the moronic retarded FOUR WHEELERS drive in the RIGHT LANE, and let the truckers drive the left?
You know what, Mr. Marshall Glasgow of Joplin, MO? I have not done that a few hundred times. I avoid trucks like they are radioactive because I learned as a motorcyclist many years ago that retreaded tires tend to blow up and kill people. I can honestly say that I have never been the cause of a trucker having to slam on his brakes.
But that doesn’t mean that millions of motorists don’t pose a threat to truckers, just like Mr. Glasgow’s ostensible clean-as-a-whistle approach to “truckstop speed” doesn’t mean that truck drivers are all clean as a whistle. Not that he understands that.
I’ve come to believe that a one-year mandatory course in logic and rhetoric would benefit the vast majority of America’s high-school students.
Particularly if a bullwhip was part of the curriculum.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to return to reading the comments. They’re stupid, and they’re funny, but they are mine.
For the record, a) I agree with the proposal, b) everyone I’ve known who’s been within spitting distance of trucking agrees that it is a drug-fueled business model, and c) they damn sure DON’T have those governors down in Texas. It’s not unusual to be moving along at 10 over the limit and find a Peterbilt parked 6 inches off your rear bumper.
I also think it’s hilarious that one commenter thinks that any slowdown of trucking will cause Walmart to price a box of Cheerios at $15. I’m pretty sure that Walmart can adjust it’s inventory model to compensate for less than a penny a box.
Trucks need to realize the real cost of the damage that they do to the roads instead of me paying for it via gas taxes and federal income taxes and god knows what other ways they extracting money from me.
This might help the problem fix itself.
I was stuck behind truckers going three wide on a section of i55 north of Springfield il the other day. I know anger in the situation is a little irrational, but I was truly furious.
“Trucks need to realize the real cost of the damage that they do to the roads instead of me paying for it via gas taxes and federal income taxes and god knows what other ways they extracting money from me.”
but raise the tax on road diesel and listen to the howls of protest.
Umm….we truckers pay the Heavy Wheel Use tax. You, who drive a car, pays from 40 cents to in some instances over a dollar LESS at the pump than we do. If you do the math , genius, it is WE who pay the majority for these roads, not you. Quit your bitchin, life ain’t for sissies.
0. The damage from ONE truck is equivalent to 9,600 cars: http://archive.gao.gov/f0302/109884.pdf
1. Fuel taxes are insufficient to pay for the US Interstate system, which is why there is additional general use funding allocated to it by the Government from proceeds of the income tax.
I’d put my total tax burden up against any long-haul trucker’s any day of the week. My professional rate per hour is higher than the gross owner-operator rate for operating a tractor-trailer for an hour. In other words, the market thinks I’m more valuable sitting at a desk than a fully-loaded double-trailer rig running down the Interstate. Every minute you hold me up in traffic to save a minute for yourself is effectively stealing from me and the economy. And I don’t have to fuel or repair myself so my net is considerably higher.
Well, I guess I go to Subway once a day, right?
Seriously, though, I am carrying a higher tax burden than a trucker and so are many of the people who are being held up by truckers. Let’s respect each other on the road instead of yapping about “UR IN MY OFFICE AND STUFF”.
The problem there is not so much the trucks, but your elected officials.. you see while they are extracting that minuscule amount from your gas tank (I’ll trade your $50 or $75 fill up for my $1200 per day anytime), they hit us not only at the pump, but also with a half dozen other taxes that are required to be paid for our trucks to be on those roads.. then those same politicians compound the problem by not using the money for what it is intended.. that was rather well documented in the aftermath of the I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis a few years back.. the Interstate and US Highway system was designed from the start to support heavy truck traffic (in fact, do a bit of research, and you will discover that the entire reasoning behind the Interstate highways were created specifically for that very purpose, not for the commuter to shave that 5 minutes off their trip to work in the morning).. The problem is that the politicians that you help elect, build parks, playgrounds, and bike trails using those fuel tax dollars, rather than maintain the roads to the condition they should be..
Mr. Glasgow did articulate one item on which I doubt he spent much thought and to which you did not directly respond. It was a similar thought that occurred to me and that I likely spent about, oh, 10 whole seconds more thought than did Mr. Glasgow. That is, why not make the truckers keep left?
The tradition (or legal requirement in some locales) of slower vehicles keeping to the right has been so long abandoned in practice that it is often more conducive to maximum street speed to use the right lane as the passing lane. This is particularly true during a traffic jam or congestion-induced slowdown on controlled-access highways as the mouth-breathing automatons hug the left lane with the situational awareness of a rock careening down the road ten feet from the bumper of the car in front of them, who is doing the same thing, ad infinitum.
Forcing trucks to the left (without advertising such requirement to the brain-dead masses, btw) would further open the already rarely-used right lanes to more open traffic flow. It would reduce the need to dodge or cut off trucks to make exit ramps. It would reduce the tendency for entering vehicles to pull in front of a truck and forcing a slowdown from which trucks take forever to recover.
It might be worth some consideration.
I really wish “trucks keep right” would be enforced. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been on I-696 and had 18 wheeler #1 in the right lane doing 59 mph, 18-wheeler #2 in the right-center lane passing #1 at 59.25 mph, and some dimp in a delivery box truck in the left-center lane passing #2 at 59.75 mph. then to top it all off, there’ll be some 90-year-old milkshake in the left lane going slightly slower than the box truck.
And nevermind the mess that is I-94 through the city of Detroit. You’ll have trucks merging onto 94 from I-75 who just have to get over to the left so they can exit to M-10, and you’ll have all three lanes of 94 plugged up with trucks jockeying for position while crawling along.
then some of them have the gall to put “Without Trucking, America Stops” decals on the back of the trailer.
I always love the semi-truck drag-racing that goes on when I take interstate trips, multiple times, every trip. One truck is doing 65 mph and another wants to pass him for no apparent reason… and does so at 66mph. Every time they come to the most minor hill it negates all the passing “progress” the second truck has made. Meanwhile, traffic is backing up bumper to bumper in both lanes for a mile or more behind them. If a motorist in a car did this we’d call them a lawbreaker and a dick, but apparently if you have a CDL you have free license to do it and should do so as often as possible.
Banishing trucks to the right lane might help, but if anyone REALLY cared about road safety they would make it illegal to pay drivers by the mile… All this does is encourage drivers to speed, take speed or not sleep.. If they were paid by the hour truckers would have no reason to use the left lane and go 1MPH faster. Computer tracking could easily report drivers “milking” the system and slacking off.
UPS pays their big rig drivers by the hour (some guys make over 100k a year) and they have over 4,000 drivers without an accident in 25 years of driving.
where is my “Like” button? you have hit the nail squarely on the head… this one thing would solve so many problems in the trucking industry from an operation and safety standpoint.. then the immediate thing to do after that step is to lower warehousing taxes so that the whole “just-in-time” freight concept disappears..
Wow, I feel dumber for reading those comments. I cannot comprehend how one truck takes precedence over the 50 cars that are trapped behind when we get the truckers drag race on the interstate. It isn’t time or money savings it is pure arrogance. A CDL holder can drive 11 hours and they try to justify these passes which could save maybe 10 minutes a day. Keep up the good work Jack.
Luckily these jobs will be among the first to be automated away as self-driving technology grows in leaps and bounds. The opinions of these guys about their industry are right up there with Blockbuster video clerks and milkmen. I hope we have the Basic Income Grant in place by then so these guys can devote more time to catfisting.
As for the costs to society, well America is a bit different from Europe because here as Earl Wilson put it: “Modern man drives a mortgaged car over a bond-financed highway on credit card gas.”
The comments are a hoot ! .
Looking forward to similar folderol here in short order .
-Nate
I just did 3200 miles in a rented Mustang GT and saw this time and time again. I want to write an article about the trip. Any chance you would read it Jack?
100% chance I would read it: send it to (myfirstname)@baruth.net.
I think hourly pay is a good suggestion, but disagree with a right-lane restriction. Especially if the trucks have to travel at an even lower speed. In my experience, it’s more likely to be a car that’s creeping or keeping pace, running 65 in a perfectly good 70. There’s the general +5mph, which I think is a federal statute. I think it should be amended to +5 general, +10 to pass and get it over with, so that traffic doesn’t compress behind.
Next week we can explain how to merge at the same speed as ambient traffic.
Good that you have the attitude that a lighting rod needs to stay stay upright and productive in the public arena.
Now if you want to really be abused, especially by women, write something about cattle grazing on public lands and the impact of cattle raising on the environment, another highly subsidized industry that degrades the environment at great public cost
I have two perspectives on the issue of the trucking industry one from the cost of building and maintain roads.. My step-father was a highway/bridge engineer. And the second from the members of my family in the trucking industry who pretty much find a lot of fault with the industry and with the 4-wheelers.
First off trucking is essential to the economy, but we don’t directly pay the total cost of it when we use it to ship anything.
Oop’s! Got to take a break, the transporter just arrived with my 47′ Cadillac convertible… More later.
First off it is essential to the economy, but we don’t directly pay the total cost of it when we use it to ship anything.
“Take for instance, the woman driving with one leg on the dash, and the other on the door.”
She sounds fun.
It’s amazing how two trucks driving the same speed next to each other can clog up traffic and generally piss off everyone behind them although they’ll never have the exclusive franchise on this kind of behavior as long as there are Toyota drivers on the road.
I remember from sixth grade in middle school that most kids in my reading class struggled with reading comprehension; looks like it wasn’t any better in any other school.
No trucks allowed in the left lane in MA works great you always have one lane to get around them. A good compromise, I do feel bad though for the poor trucker stuck behind the oddball going 50 on the 2 lane freeway with no possibility to pass.
Actually on two lane roads of any kind, in most states, trucks can pass in those situations. On three lane roads, only the right and middle lanes are available to them, though, they can usually travel in the middle lane.
Lane travel relevance has to do with a vehicle’s driver being on the left side of the car in NA, where they have a left hand driver’s mirror to help with a better overall view of traffic conditions and vehicles moving in the left lanes at critical closing speeds. It also has to do with access usually being on the right side of lane travel. So it is lane progressive in terms of of entry speeds to higher speeds.
Gotcha, I realized this later I am wrong about 2 lane roads even here in MA it seems. There are not a ton of 2 lane roads in eastern MA where you will see a lot of trucks. But plenty of roads if you travel down the coast like this and if it is late at night you are bound to get caught behind 2 trucks barley passing.
MA does allow passing on the right, which dumb as it is, is pretty necessary here.
Nice reference to Robert Mapplethorpe, Jack! (to the non-astute readers, Google “Mapplethorpe bullwhip”
At the very least, everyone exhibiting that level of truckulence needs to demonstrate familiarity with Dave Dudley’s “Six Days on the Road.”
I lived in Germany for eight years where not only large trucks have to keep right, but they are limited to 100 kph even when everyone else is at 120 kph or unlimited. Of course trucks are allowed to pass one another, and that is sometimes frustrating siting behind one truck going 95 kph and the other going 100 kph to pass. At any rate, from my anecdotal foxhole, that system works quite well when enforced. In fact, call me a Euro-socialist, Nazi-sympathizer, or whatever, but I very much preferred such a driving environment.
In Spain, trucks have their speed limited to 55mph in Freeways and 50mphs in two way roads. Here, the left lane can only be used to pass and the rule is generaly observed by everyone since most of our Freeways are have only two lanes in each direction. When three or more lanes are present, trucks are only allowed in the two lanes to the right, being the left one reserved for cars and buses.
Do you want to hear the bad news? We still get the “Truck driver passing 1mph faster another vehicle” a lot. Last Friday I drove 180 miles South. I got stuck behind trucks doing their 1mph flashmob at least eight times. Some of those times I was stuck behind for over four or five minutes. We are talking friday traffic here so that means 90% of drivers vaguely get a sense of what their throttle and brakes do when pressed. It can get really dangerous if the guy behind you is driving a huge SUV while texting while trying to play some Pixar DVD to his kids in the back seat while driving while arguing with his wife…
We surely don’t have as much truck traffic as you do in the US but it’s still ennoying. Anyway, I’m afraid for the government and the cops it’s much easier to enforce laws on car drivers than on truck drivers… (We don’t have the ability to go on strike and halt the country to a full stop)
Greetings from behind a truck 🙂
FWIW ;
In the U.S. there are ‘ lane control ‘ laws that require OTR Tucks to remain in the right most two lanes when in town but in the last few years , the current crop of ‘ Truckers ‘ (not like the professional OTR Drivers I grew up with) don’t give a rat’s @$$ and use all four lanes and often pull out right in front of rapidly over taking traffic not caring a whit about causing collisions and the CHP (I now live in California , land of Fruits , Nuts and Flakes) clearly doesn’t care either as this would be easy to stop by giving out ticket$ , the only way to get folks attention is to hit ’em in the wallet .
I am a OTR supporter *but* I also believe they must follow the rules for everyone’s safety .
Yes , cars cause more accidents but only because there are more cars & light trucks than there are OTR rigs .
If the Truckers would Man Up and accept their responsibility there would be far less carnage on our Highways and Byways , this was the point of Jack’s original article .
I’d comment there but I don’t do facebok .
-Nate
(who always give OTR Rigs plenty of space and when I see them barreling up behind me and there’s no one to my left I pull out of their way as I am well aware it’s not an easy job , driving a Big Rig)
California already has a version of this. If there are two lanes in one direction, the left lane can only be used for passing. If there are three lanes or more, the trucks are confined to the two right-hand lanes, unless posted otherwise.
In addition, the trucks have a lower speed limit.
I tend to favor both ideas, although the studies that I have read would suggest that the tiered speed limits are a bad idea.
This is one of those (rare) cases when I’m inclined to not believe the research. The theory against the different limits is that speed variance between these vehicle types causes problems, but I’m inclined to think that the risk posed by the longer braking distances of the trucks outweighs the risk of the speed variance, particularly if it is combined with lane discipline.
I spent a year in the Middle East, and they enforce the right lane rule there. And in the United Arab Emirates, EVERYTHING comes by freight and truck. Their economy is doing just fine. It was the same in Jordan where they have no piles of crude and have to rely on a conventional “bust your ass to live the dream” style of economics.
Here in Atlanta, it is the same. The right two lanes unless its construction (and its always construction) in which case we’re all screwed, so we deal with it. I haven’t paid $15 for cereal yet.
And dude, do you even drink Lattes? There seems to be a lot of insinuation that you do. When the hell did that become a viable insult?
O.K. stupid question time :
What exactly is a ‘ latte ‘ ?? .
Some sort of Coffee I know but I just like Coffee , hot or iced when it’s too hot to enjoy it hot….
How can drinking some Coffee based drink be a pejorative ? .
Help an old geezer out here .
-Nate
Lattes are associated with Starbucks and the kind of people who go to Starbucks, I think. 🙂
For those commenting on the existence of right lane rules and laws in the US, I would only offer that the existence of a law doesn’t necessarily mean the law is well-enforced or adhered to in practice.
Also, when considering tht most interstates outside of large urban areas are only two lanes in each direction anyway, keeping trucks limited to the right two lanes isn’t particularly relevant under those circumstances.
How do you think you “fast” car got to the dealership? Answer: a truck, how do you think you cloths and food get to the grocery store? Answer: a truck. The simple fact is these boys keep the nation alive. Not you with you bankers job or you being a lawyer. Just remember they live on the road. For most that is there home. YOU ARE A GUEST ON THE INTERSTATE. These guys and girls live on the road spending weeks away from there loved ones to make sure jackass’ like y’all get your stuff for your house and then come and complain about how slow trucks are and they should stay in the right lane. The reason most trucks are governed is for safety and fuel economy. So next time your behind a slow truck that’s passing someone WITHIN THE SPEED LIMIT how about you think about how everything you own got to the store? You wanna go flying down the highway over the speed limit go to a race track. Don’t want to go to a track than go to Germany. But don’t come on here insulting truck drivers. Learn to deal with them. They bring you your crap!
James,
We live in a society. Part of living in a society is not getting your own way all the time in all circumstances.
Every day of your life, you expect other working people to make accommodations for you. You expect that restaurants will stay open late and day-care centers will have trucker-friendly hours and your doctor will be available at midnight if you get hurt in a crash and that children in Bangladesh will literally work themselves to death so you can have cheap clothing.
Yet you think the highway is your private playground. You are wrong. It is the property of this society and this society as a whole will determine how and why that property is used.
I am not a guest on the Interstate. I pay more in income taxes to the Federal government than you and your truck pay combined. I am a taxpaying citizen with an equal right to that road because I paid as much or more for it as you did.
Nobody’s insulting truck drivers. We’re asking you to participate in society. To make accommodations for the inconvenience you cause other people.
Maybe this analogy would help: Everything you eat was produced by Cargill or ADM. Would you let a Cargill executive come fuck your wife on the nights you’re out on the road, out of gratitude for his role in feeding you?
Of course not. So can this stupidity about how we should all be grateful to truckers.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Thank you Jack ;
This needs to be said as some appear to not understand the basic concept of living in a Society .
That being said , Trucking is an important job .
-Nate
This is the kind of conversation that needs to involve experienced members of the truck driving community as opposed to excluding (or speaking for) them.
I don’t disagree. Thank you for contributing.