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Monday, December 13, 2010

VOLVO TRUCKS

I bought an `07 Volvo VN 780 in `08. That was the biggest mistake of my life. For the full story see my website - http://www.leespage.ca/h/trucking/volvo.html

Friday, December 03, 2010

NOISY TRUCKS ARE SAFER

For those of you who read road side signs, this of course does not include lady drivers with tunnel vision who never see road side signs let alone read them, you have probably seen the signs that say, `USE OF ENGINE BRAKES ILLEGAL, CITY BYLAW #’, and wonder why you still hear those noisy trucks.
Fear not, your tax dollar that paid for the city council to debate, for hours, and even weeks, on how to word the sign, and for the crew to install the signs, have not been wasted.
Truckers do read those signs and they do comply.
Let me explain how.
You probably think that truckers run around with engine brakes turned on and when they see such signs they turn their; Jacob’s, Jake, Cummins, Mack, Pacbrake, or engine brakes off.
Actually, just the opposite is true.
A city or sign can not legally tell a trucker, or any other driver to operate a vehicle in an unsafe manner. Nothing could be more unsafe than telling a driver to turn off his brakes.
An engine brake, called Jake or Jacob’s brakes were originally manufactured by a company called Jacobs. When they were invented they were quickly adapted to be used on busses. Don’t think that every commercial bus that you see on the highway isn’t equipped with them, and I’ll tell you why
One day, foolishly, and anyone who knows me will tell you I often do foolish things, I, in accordance with a city bylaw, turned my engine brakes off. (Not Jake, as I have a Volvo motor in my big highway rig.) A car stopped, unexpectedly, in front of me. I quickly pulled my foot off the throttle (gas pedal) and slammed it down on the brake pedal. I have, without a word of a lie, one of the fastest reaction times of all drivers. (How fast can you remove your foot from a depressed position on the gas to a depressed position on the brake?)
I managed to stop without doing any damage to the car but I did bump it. If I had had my Jake brake turned on I would not have hit her at all.
The reason is, the instant you take your foot of f the throttle, the computer, if the switch is in the on position, turns the engine brake on and by the time your foot travels, only a split second, from the gas pedal to the brake pedal, and pushes the pedal, the engine brake has already reduced the speed of the truck by many miles per hour.
An exact opposite situation occurred one day when I was South bound through the s curve, where Clark Dr. becomes Victoria Dr. As I came through the last part of the curve the light ahead of me turned green and as the lane ahead of me was empty I stepped on the throttle. As I did so a car pulled out of a side street in front of me. The young lady never slowed down for the crosswalk let alone stop for the red light. She never at anytime looked to left or right.
Instantly I transferred my foot from the gas to the brake. My truck stopped with my bumper, about 1 inch from her back bumper as she sped across in front of me.
If my engine brake had not been in the on position I would have hit her in the driver’s door and she would not be alive today. (With the way she drives she may not be as this was some months ago.)
I get a laugh out of the sign on Boundary Rd. on the steep hill going down to the intersection at Marine Way, `USE ENGINE BRAKES ONLY IN THE EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY’. If it is an emergency it is much too late to be reaching around the dash looking for the switch to turn on the engine brakes. By the time you find it the emergency will be over.
People complain about the noise of the Jake brakes, but believe me the noise would be a lot louder if a truck, not using its engine brakes, was to be unable to stop and hit a truck full of fuel. The resultant explosion would be heard for miles.

So, why do you hear Jake brakes when there is a sign that says `no engine brakes allowed’?
Because professional drivers know that such signs are general placed at the top of a hill and at the bottom of a hill there is inevitably a stop sign or a red light. By using their engine brakes to hold back that heavy load down the hill they keep their main brakes cool enough to be able to stop at the bottom.
To a trucker, all those signs read, `DANGER, HILL, OR CONGESTED AREA, AHEAD. PLEASE, SAVE A LIFE, USE YOUR ENGINE BRAKES.’ Remember the child in that school bus may be yours.
However, for those of you who, like me, abhor noise pollution, peace is on its way. New trucks, for the past five or more years, have developed exhaust systems that curtail the noise of the engine, and the engine brakes. The newest rigs, including mine which is 3 years old, are so quiet, when the jakes are on, that you, standing by the road, would not know they were on.