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harvestmoonpuller 03-09-2009 03:06:51 70.105.65.8 3194 Report to Moderator	So a couple weekends ago my buddy bought a truck in Michigan up by jackson. Asked me to haul it home so i agreed if he paid for my fuel. We left Payne Oh around 8:30 with the snow commin down pretty good. Drove safely up in about 3 hours. Got loaded up and was headin home down 127 and commin down a hill a car flew past us and slammed on his brakes. With the snow commin down pretty heavy and heavy snow on the road the entire back end of his car was covered in snow. As soon as he passed us he hit his brakes to turn at the bottom of the hill. Since his back end was covered in snow i couldnt see his brakes were on. I realized we were closing in too fast so i began to apply the brakes. I had the trailer brakes set up really good as to not lock up and jack knife. The car kept getting closer and closer and closer to my front end and i was finally on the brakes so hard they were locked up. We got right up on this car so close the only thing i could seeover my hood was his back window. By this time i had my truck horn and my train horns blastin but the driver of the car didnt seem to here me. The thought of me running him over came into my mind and to spair our vehicles and possibly this drivers life i made a split second decision and pointed my truck for the ditch. My truck and trailer ended up going into the ditch at about 35 while the driver of the car slid to the bottom of the hill, stopped and then continued to turn off of 127. Without stopping i got my truck and trailer out of the ditch and back onto the road and stopped at the safest place possible to check my load. the truck on the trailer shifted about 6in from impact of the ditch, all else was fine. Upon arriving at home i looked over my trucka again and noticed my front bumber had black marks all over the front from where i was actually pushing this idiots car down the hill. I quickly realized how lucky we all were nobody got hurt and there wasnt an accident. Just a reminder to everyone else that you cant predict what the guy driving in front or behind you is going to do. Keep the tractors orange, the grass green, and barns red [Reply]   [Send Email]
Greasey Hand 03-21-2009 07:10:47 64.61.220.16 3229 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   Several years ago I bought a big wrecker from a friend than, His step dad worked in a train yard moving cars around & He had gotten a train horn & the boy put it on the roof of the truck i bought from him. Well they had hooked it up to the air brakes but I never new that, It never worked cause the brakes were never on to long. Than one day my brother in law got in a car axident & the car was at a gas station about 25 miles away & he asked me to go get it & bring it out to his farm. I had to go through this town & go down this steep hill to a red & green stop light at the bottom of the hill & on the other side was a old train Xing that was about 300 ft from the lights & the tracks hadn't been used for many years. The light was red & i braked & braked & there started this rumbling in the roof of the cab got louder & louder Than came the WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOO & the light changed but all the cars were stoped at the tracks, Lookin down those tracks for a train that wasn't there & I had to put them on again cause of all the cars WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOO again. There were no lights at the train Xing but the people remember what a train horn mean't, Well there was quite a bunch of confused people there at that Xing I just sat in the truck & after awhile when they couldn't see a train & dint know what the hell was goin on they slowly drove of. I drove of to, Slow & made sure I din't make no long braking stops any more.   [Reply]   [Send Email]
john_Bud 03-15-2009 08:10:56 67.142.162.29 3226 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   Yeah there are idiots everywhere. Couple years ago I was pulling a 23' cuddy cabin from the west coast to the midwest with a 3/4 ton big block suburban. (7.5 mpg) and was "lucky" enough to go thru a large city at the tail end of rush hour. I was in the slow lane going about 45 and a ditzy dame in a BMW came tearing az down the on ramp and tried to get in tight behind me by forcing the car behind me to let her in. She was honking and flipping the bird over her shoulder to the driver that was so rude as to not let her in! (Chuckle) You should have seen her face when she realized the "car" was a boat on a trailer! Idiot. jb   [Reply]   [No Email]
mattofvinings 03-10-2009 17:38:07 67.142.161.34 3210 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   Gotta agree here, the average Joe or Jane has zero clue about what's involved in a long & heavy tow & trailer combo vehicle. I try to keep a big margin of clear road ahead of me when pulling (I only have 3 gears) but people have cut me off similar to above. There is another class of driver who darts, stabs, and crowds when I'm trying to negotiate a tight gas station or shoehorn the trailer into someplace in reverse. My worst close call was leaving my neighborhood in the city...only place to turn around the gooseneck in the neighborhood was to execute a 3 point turn in a sort of a Y-intersection that started with as much of a circle as I could make before running out of road. Granted this is a residential neighborhood with 25mph speed limit, and I had the trailer jacked around making this turn, nobody in sight. I got it reversed where I had enough road to finish out the turn, put it in Drive and gave a little gas to straighten out without much thought on focusing ahead, after all I was occupying 90% of the road, when a speeding car passes my front bumper with what looked like about 6" of clearance! Guess he thought he'd just gun it and get by...that type of thinking could have been very costly for all involved.   [Reply]   [No Email]
T_Bone 03-10-2009 07:56:51 4.254.160.223 3207 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   A couple years ago the local TV news showed a girl about 25yo driving about 40mph on icy roads and was going to hit something so what did she do; opened the car door and jumped out!!! They showed her sliding on her keister just behind her car. They didn't show the end results. Did her Dad/mom teach her that trick??? T_Bone   [Reply]   [No Email]
jcmini 03-09-2009 21:20:18 96.18.52.8 3205 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   I almost ate the big one last weekend I was coming home from the feed store driving my brand new dodge one ton duel weels diesel with a ton of feed and 4 protien tubs that weigh two hundred pounds each 2800#yes I was over wight I was going down the highway running 65 mph when a simi truck heading twords me decides he wants to drive in my lane there wasnt no reason for him to swerve over in my lane I hit the braks and took the shoulder dang near turned it over lost some sacks of feed in the ditch you couldnt of put your hand between us when we passed the truck behind me ended up in the ditch two and these are profesional drivers   [Reply]   [No Email]
harvestmoonpuller 03-09-2009 19:40:39 173.107.24.247 3203 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   Actually no i do not operate a semi or anything close to. I was actually driving my 3/4 ton dodge cummins. I have some extra goodies on it like train horns, 7in stacks and a few other chips and boxes to help me keep up to speed while towing when the conditions are right. I may be a young gun compared to most of you but i do take a great deal of caution when towing anything because i do realize i am not only putting my life at risk but other people that are on the road with me. I would put a picture of my truck on here but i dont know how so if you go to www.blackclouddiesel.com an look at the mitre stack pictures my truck is the first one on there. Its not much but i take great pride in what i have.Thanks for taking the time in reading my posts and acknowledging that we are not only responsible for ourselves but also the people driving beside us.   [Reply]   [Send Email]
snoop-nc 03-10-2009 05:30:38 66.226.41.191 3206 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 19:40:39   HARVESTMOONPULLER wrote: we are not only responsible for ourselves but also the people driving beside us. That statement, Sir, says it all. I'd feel a lot safer on the concrete sea if there were more of you out there. Snoop   [Reply]   [No Email]
ScottyHOMEy 03-09-2009 19:40:29 64.222.222.178 3202 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   There's idiots in every kind of vehicle, from those little Smart Cars right up to the Class 8s. My rule of the road is to extend courtesy where and when I can, expect none in return, and assume very other driver in sight is a moron until they show me better. The result, so far, is that I've never had to take the ditch. I've had close calls, most of them with cars. In those cases I can write them off as drones. My worst yet was with a tractor-trailer, one of those folks who are held out as trained professional drivers. I had a deckover gooseneck with two tractors chained down. I was visible enough just for my size, never mind that the truck, the trailer and the tractors are all red, and the line of sight was not a problem. A fella with a 9,000 gal tanker loaded with clay slurry decided to pull out of a side road on the right, making a wide right turn to go in my direction -- there was no going around him on either side. The sunuvawhore was looking me in the eye when he pulled out. If my rig had been in anything other than tip top shape and not had an exhaust brake, and I hadn't already backed out of the throttle guessing what he was about to do, we'd have had a mess. To this day, I will swear that the exhaust brake made the final difference -- not my anticipation nor the discs on the truck and the electric shoes on the trailer alone would not have slowed me enough to keep from running under this idiot's tank. I offered a few (actually quite civil, gien the situation) words on the CB. When he came back with a colorfully unfavorable opinion of me for even bringing up the subject, his partner in the truck behind him (still sitting at the stop sign on the side road) suggested he shut his trap and thank his lucky stars that I wasn't wedged under his tank. Police oficers on highway duty are trained to treat every traffic stop as if the driver and any passengers are armed. I take the same view of any vehicle I can see.   [Reply]   [No Email]
showcrop 03-09-2009 18:43:18 75.67.222.130 3200 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   Couple years ago I was driving in a light rain on the beltway nearby with a load of loam on my triaxle dump. A small car was passing me in the inside lane. Just as she got almost by me she saw that she was about to miss her exit. It's the one with all the big stores so I suppose it was a shopping emergency. So as soon as she's an inch ahead of me she changes to the lane I'm in and slams on the brakes so that she can make her exit. this of course makes me start to gain on her pretty rapidly even with heavy break pressure. I yanked on the horn and pushed harder on the brakes and I was still gaining on her. I checked the mirror quick and there was room to the left so I swerved left to go around her and then I was going sideways down the three lane with my load of loam. then she shifted over to the right and did the same to the next guy. I got myself squared up and delivered my load and it looked like it was all still there.   [Reply]   [No Email]
IH 301 03-09-2009 16:40:56 205.242.95.140 3199 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   People these days are getting more stupid when it comes to playing with other vehicles that are larger than them. I run a Ford diesel crew cab single wheel and a 30ft flatbed, and people do that to me all the time. Its absolutly uncalled for when people pass, and then brake. They don't realize that trucks this size don't stop on a dime. I have had close calls before but never hit anybody. Life is a precious thing, but some people seem to think getting there faster is a priority. Out of all the times it's happened to me, there was only once that I would not have swerved to miss. This instance was a person that was intentionally trying to cause problems in an already conjected area. When it comes to semi's, the way I see it, you play with them in that manner, your only asking for one fate.   [Reply]   [No Email]
snoop-nc 03-09-2009 15:04:31 66.226.41.191 3198 Report to Moderator	Re: Too close for comfort in reply to harvestmoonpuller, 03-09-2009 03:06:51   As I read your posting, I was wondering what size truck/trailer YOU were operating...saw "train horn" comment and now assume you were in a larger truck. Either way...it really is getting scary out there with senseless drivers. I drive 18 wheeler...approx. 1 million miles on my butt...and I'm really looking forward to retirement and getting off the road. You are/were a good driver to have prevented a tragic accident. I TIP MY CAP to you.   [Reply]   [No Email]