What to Do and What Not to Do Around a Semi Truck

Driving Near Semi Trucks

I drive truck for a living and have done some study on why most accidents happen between cars an trucks. I am going to share my knowledge with you in this guide in the hopes to help make are roads safer. I will start with what not to do,then what to do then a reason why.

Merging Onto The Freeway

When you are merging onto the freeway and you see a truck in that lane, don't freak out and slam on your brakes. What you need to do is one of two things speed up or slow down slowly. I will explain if you are up around the tractor area, that's the area where the driver is do not I repeat do not do; as what i call the "freak out ". The freak out is slamming on your brake, you don't want to do that near the tractor because we see you and already are slowing down all you have to do is speed up.By speeding up you will easily merge in, in front of the truck. If you freak out you cause a problem because we are slowing down for you then when you freak out you are gonna end up coming to a stop which is not good when you are needing to merge onto a freeway. It will also take the truck some time to get back up to speed after having slowed down to let you in. If you find yourself lined up with the trailer of the truck just slow down slowly until you can merge in behind the truck.Whatever you do, do not try to speed up and get in front of the truck when you are running out of merging lane.

Exiting The Freeway

Believe it or not there are a lot of people that will try to pass a semi when there exit is coming up. This has been a on going problem for some time that contributes to many accidents. You will not loose any time by staying behind the truck for a few minutes until you get to your exit. This is what many people do, there exit is no more then a mile away, many times less then one mile. They speed up and try to pass on the left side of the truck and then to there surprise are about to miss there exit , cut the truck off and slam on there brakes right in front of it. This is not what you want to do, you will be taking the chance of being rear ended by that truck you cut off. Also if you do manage to safely get out of in front of the truck that does not mean the truck is doing alright the driver could have lost control of the truck and jackknifed or rolled over. Possibly crashing into other vehicles leading to a vicious chain reaction of events. This is because trucks are hauling freight which many times is very heavy and can not slow down very fast and if forced to in unsafe road conditions can loose control of there rig. Unsafe road conditions are if it's raining,snowing,hailing or any other kind of adverse weather. If braking very quickly in these conditions the trailer will begin to slide to one direction causing the above events. So please for the safety of everyone do not try getting to exit a few seconds faster by cutting off a truck. To those who do not do this, I and every trucker on the road thank you.

In The City

In the city a truck is there to deliver or pick up a load not to make you mad or frustrated. If a truck is at a traffic light with it's turn signal on that driver is planning on turning. Even if there is a car amount of space on the inside of the truck, the driver is leaving that space so that he or she can safely get around that turn without running something or someone over with the trailer. This procedure is often done when there is not enough room to get the trailer around that curve and can not be successfully carried out if a car goes and takes up that space. In the city you do not want to get on either side of the truck. You should always stay behind the truck while it is turning.On a two lane road make sure you do not try to pass the truck on a solid line (a no pass zone), it is a solid line for a reason and thats because you can not see everyone who is coming on the opposite side. The truck is slow because it has no choice in the matter it takes awhile to get seventy something pounds moving from a stop to road speed. Most trucks have to shift up through 13 gears,it takes awhile.

On The Highway

On the highway by law trucks have to stay in the far right lane and in the case of multiple lanes can use the next lane in to pass other slower moving trucks. The slower moving trucks are only moving slower because they have too. The slower trucks usually weigh more and that forces them to go slower then trucks that weigh less. On the highway you see a truck in front of you in the next lane in from the slow lane he or she is passing someone going slower, do not go into the slow lane to pass the truck in front of you that truck is going to go right back over there where it's suppose to as soon as it can just be patient the truck will not be in your way for long . A car should never pass a truck on its right there is what is called blind spots, these blind spots we can not see you in. there are more blind spots on the right and the truck is always going to go back over to the right lane, unless there is like four or more lanes. If there is four or more lanes in a busy city the truck will probably stay in the second lane in, because that will be avoiding all the people trying to merge onto the freeway. It is the safest place to be in that situation. On the freeway no matter how much of a hurry you may be in do not pass a truck on it's right it would not be a safe thing to do as that truck could go to get back in that lane and not see you there cause you would be in it's blind spot.