Steering wheel holder

I have been called a steering wheel holder many times but it looks like it literally has come true.
Went to Dallas this weekend and took one of our newer trucks equipped with Bendix ACB (Active Cruise with Braking) system.
This is a aid to try to prevent rear-end collisions by keeping proper following distance.

You set the cruise at your speed.



A radar gun on the front of the truck picks up every object within 4 seconds (company set) in front of you.
So if a car passes and cuts in front of you it picks it up. As long as the car is going faster than your set speed there is no danger of a rear-end collision so the system does nothing.



But if you come up on a slower vehicle the system picks it up and cuts your speed to keep you at a safe following distance. At 66 that's in the high 3 seconds.





If someone pulls in front of you and is slowing down such as a car cutting in and slowing for a exit the truck will automatically hit the brakes in turn cutting off the cruise and allowing the jake brake to come on. I have been told by other drives it will hit the brakes hard enough to smoke the tires on a empty trailer trying to avoid someone that does a sudden stop in front of you.
This is what 3.8 seconds at 65 looks like in following distance.



So basically I can set the cruise at 66. If I get to close to someone the truck will slow to match their speed. If they pull away; get off a exit; or I pull into the left lane where they are no longer directly in front of me the truck will speed up and resume my set 66 mph. I never have to touch the gas; brake; of clutch for this to happen. I just steer the truck down the road.

If you turn the cruise off and use the foot pedal the system will warn you if you get to close to something. The closer you get the louder and quicker the beeping sound gets.





Now all they need to do is invent a system that follows the white line and I could sleep while going down the road.

John thats neat and all and mean absolutely no offence to you what so ever but in my opinion they are building trucks for less competent drivers that can't think for themselves and don't have to think for themselves.I guess its like we see everyday common sense is a thing of the past.

They have been dreaming about driver-less trucks for decades. Just think the driver gets out in Pennsylvania and another gets in in CA.
No more over the road drivers(fewer anyway)

Call it building trucks for less competent drivers or driver comfort.

But I can say todays trucks are much easier on the body and help a driver with less fatigue then those death traps on wheels I started in well over 3 million miles ago.

John I agree trucks have come a long way ,for me I think the biggest improvement was the air ride cab.I too started OTR driving trucks with Hendrickson spring and Reyco spring suspension.My back aches again just thinking about it.LOL!

John that system work fine on dry roads. Try it out on wet or slippery roads.

Fellow in Dubuque drives for Food liner. They got ten of them a few years ago to do driving test for the truck manufacture.

He was going out 20 towards Waterloo and it was sprinkling. A car passed him an slowed down but was still in the left lane. The Automatic system locked the brakes. Jacked knifed the truck and trailer. His first accident in over forty years of driving. HE got wrote up by the company for the wreck.

I would NEVER drive a truck with a system like that in operation. Too many things to go wrong and wreck you.

I was watching the system to see if it would pickup a car in the other lane; like in a curve.
Never did.

Personally if they would turn off the braking system and leave it to only cut the throttle and turn on the jake I think it would be much better. Especially since we pull wiggle wagons.

I run threw some heavy (cars stopping on the side of the road) rain and found the object detection worked. It could see a car going slow in front of me due to the heavy rain before I could. Would think it would be similar in fog. Of course this was with he cruise off.

Would I want this truck daily. Probably not; but it was fun to play with for this one trip.

One thing is certain though.
Some pencil pusher thinks it is the answer to rear-end collisions and every truck he owns will have it.

We have been having several problems with the newer stuff.
Spent millions on peoplenet to cut cost and wound up costing us money.
International's regen system is junk. In fact Cummings and International are replacing several hundred engines in new trucks for us because of the regen system.

I have a similar system on my truck and it works flawlessly. It's never fooled, if it can't see the lines it just does nothing. You would think that those black tar repairs or debris on the road would sooner or later trick it. I've even tested it with a ridge of snow in the center or on the sides of the road, but in 210,000 miles it's never been fooled. Mine also has stability control which senses if your going to fast for a corner and applies the brakes and power to prevent a rollover. I've never had that system come on tho. As far as the guy who lost control that is not possible since the system is only installed on trucks with anti-lock brakes, so unless there was a system failure which he couldn't be held responsible for, that couldn't happen. So I suspect there is something he is not telling about that accident.

Gees, I play the Dallas bumpercar game all the time. I would never trust anything electronic here. Too many crazies.

This pic says it all. I drive like that all the time and cars will go around me and fill in the space. I just keep dropping back.

A. People seem to expect 100% safety these days. If they don't get it and they can blame someone else they will sue.

B. People want things done really cheap. More money in their pockets less leaving. Those at the top do this by paying as little as feasible to those at the bottom. Most folks do even those at the bottom hire the cheapest plumber to fit the sink. It's what companies strive for.

In the race to achieve A and B we pay drivers less and as long as we technically meet regulations we push drivers harder. Good drivers leave for better pay and/or better working environments. To fill seats we hire anyone we can and compensate by equipping our trucks with auto transmissions etc. We try to control accidents by adding technology. It's getting so it would be seen as liable if the technology exists and wasn't installed. At some point it will be legally required--IIRC stability systems are already required in new cars.

My fear is that in the future trucking will become like the airlines are now where more and more we're hearing that all pilots do is monitor automated systems. This actually is leading to avoidable accidents because they often have too much faith in the automation and they're bored/lulled into complacency after months/years of uneventfully watching the plane fly itself. They then fail to react to and correctly identify and fix problems when they do occur. A documentary I watched made, IMHO a good observation, that humans by nature are not good at monitoring things they are better suited to analyzing problems yet this has been taken out of the pilots duties. They are asked to basically monitor instruments for large portions of the flight and when something goes wrong to rely on checklist or a computer system to tell them steps to take to correct the problem.

A college professor told me some 30 years ago that he didn't think we would have a plane that flew itself because we couldn't accept the kind of accidents that would result from automated planes. We kinda accept weather and pilot error even but can we accept a software bug causing a plane to fly into the side of a mountain on a perfect day? How will this play out with trucks?

The company I drive for bought about 12 trucks with that technology on them about 10 years ago. Made by Eaton; called a "vorad". THE MOST OBNOXIOUS, ANNOYING, AGGRIVATING, UNRELIABLE; WORTHLESS AND USELESS PILE OF ************ to come down the pipeline in years. Any sales person that could convince any one of any benefit to it could "sell ice cubes to an eskimo". After 6 months or so; all had been unhooked; or removed entirely. Granted; 10 years later they may be better; but; I still vies them as worthless. Just think: If you move out to pass another vehicle before that thing shuts you off to keep distance; unless you are running 10 or more mph faster than the one you are passing; you can expect a long line of vehicles to pass on the right and render not so friendly gestures as they do so for a truck blocking the lane. (been-there-done-that). I assumed you may have guessed by now I have no use for those things.

It's just like "safety first". You take a job and the company tells you "you're safety is our #1 priority". No, it's not, it's turning a profit.

"We're here to make a profit. You are here to collect a paycheck. Your collecting a paycheck depends on us being profitable. There is some risk involved in this job. We have procedures in place to help insure you leave with all the appendages you came in with. We are not your parents, you are not a child, so let's pay attention to what we are doing and not mess this up with a stupid accident, OK?" seems like it would be more effective.