My wife worked in the Emergency Department of a major hospital for a number of years and saw first-hand the result of non seat belt users getting into accidents.
At a house party she met a non user and stressed that regardless of his lack of concern for safety, he had to be “scraped off the pavement” at public expense, so his duty as a citizen was to wear his seat belt.
My late father, a farmer, was a staunch non believer, and when he bought his first car with belts, a 1969 Chevy, he gave m a pair of scissors and asked me to cut them off. I refused, of course and told him that in most parts of the world, belts were legislated, and he finally complied; the next year his jurisdiction legislated seat belt laws.
I always wear my seatbelt if I back out of the driveway. If I back out of the garage to load the car or van, I do not buckle up. Then I don’t use the seat belt pulling back into the garage That’s a total of about 30 feet in both directions.
You just keep doing that, but when when the s/&% hits the fan - just pay the bill yourself.
When you have removed the windscreen with your forehead and got away with it scott free - as I did - you’ll learn the lesson. And I was not in any way to blame for the accident, just to be clear.
I don’t drink, I do smoke and I’ve never tried any form of drugs and I pay close attention down the road as far as I can see - BUT - I could not foresee the car that came out in front of me from a blind corner and stopped in my lane around 20 feet away, just as I was “racing” down the road with around 40 mph on a 50 mph street.
Even though I, at the time, was a quite experienced race driver, I had no chance.
I hope that situation happened many years ago. For the last many years (at least in Europe), the brake efficiency for big rigs in any configuration is very close on par with cars whether they are loaded or not. They all have disc brakes, ABS and all the other stuff one need to do it properly.
Check Youtube if You don’t trust me.
The MAN TG430 I drove ca 13 years ago would beat most cars over here from 0 - 50 and - more important - also from 50 - 0 when bobtailing.
It was about 26 years ago, I was driving a single axle tractor to pick up two trailers and a dolly about 100 miles away. No ABS, or disc brakes. The front brakes on a tractor were smaller than the rear brakes because the rear brakes would be carrying much mote weight with a loader trailer. With no ABS, the last thing you wanted was for the steering to lock up.
The US had tried implementing ABS on heavy trucks in the late 70s or early 80s but it was a disaster.
With normal freight operations, any tractor gets hooked to any tractor with any dolly between the trailers. How did you handle mixing equipment during the changeover in Europe?
Our equipment would malfunction near banks, radar detectors and toll booth. I once went through a thankfully empty toll booth at 60 mph with an 80,000 pound load with the ABS chattering away on a dry road. They did away with it by the next year and I thing the mandated ABS again in 23011 or 2013.
If you don’t have a trailer, how do you overcome the physics of trying to stop a tractor with all its weight over the steering tires and almost no weight over the drive axle?
In the early days I drove a lot of single axle tractors from the 40s and 50s with a know under the dash to control the air to the front brakes to prevent lockup.
For most of my career tractors with tandem drive axles were not required to have front brakes at all.
In 1983, I tried being a car hauler for a few months. We were hauling 9 cars with rigs that did not even have air brakes. They had vacuum brakes on the trailer that were applied with a hand lever and the foot brakes was hydraulic on the tractor only. The vacuum brake was very slow to respond ant the small wheels on the trailer necessary to load the most cars were only good for one downhill stop befor fading away.
Oldtimer, I take it as You mean the front brakes to lock up.
I’d much prefer the front brakes to lock up, because if the rear brakes do it first, I don’t have any control anymore.
I agree that the early abs systems were troublesome - to be polite.
Not really a problem, as the owner of the trailer is - at least - partially responsible in case of an accident where the trailer was the culprit - and believe me - any driver will check the brakes, airleaks and other things within 500 feet from departure and will return if any significant problem shows up, because if the driver knows there are drivability problems and continue, he’s it.
Don’t worry about our cab over trucks, they do not drop on their noses and they have load regulators on the brakes to prevent rear brake lock up. Have had those for many decades.
I would be a mutilated carcass before you would see me behind the steering wheel of such a thing.
Actually, I remember back in -96, after I, for a period move to Ca, and met with a guy who became a good friend. One day I was waiting at his shop and goofed around. I took a look at a fairly new 20000 lbs truck and got a look at the brake drums. The thing that stunned me was that the front drums was smaller than the rear drums on the 14000 lbs truck (Volvo F408) I had bought in -85.
As an addition.
In Europe (EU)
If you
Have 15% overload
or
3 cat. 3 faults on combined vehicle at a control (by police with relevant authority).
or - as owner - neglected to go through yearly inspection.
or
exceeded weekly/daily driving hours with more than 10% more than 3 times during the last 2 months
(short version, 45 hours/5 days)
Then you need a very good lawyer if you want to keep your license. You’ll loose ALL of your licenses for a 3 year period and in my country, a license for a car will cost you more than 2 of the big ones while a license as I have will set you back more than 8 grand over here.
Notice please, that if you are a an employed driver, any fine will be double for employer.
I recall seeing all the wires chopped at the ABS control boxes back in the 70s and everyone seemed to agree at that time that they were dangerous. But it was rare that I ever drove a tractor pulling a trailer back then and when I did the tractor was usually an old conventional Freightliner with a flat head Continental 6. For whatever reason there was at the time I was instructed to pull the trailer brakes on before stepping on the brakes to prevent the trailer weight from throwing the truck into a jack knife. I was a kid and never took any chances but made a lot of people mad. There wasn’t a four lane highway within 60 miles of me back then.
BTW, I was a part time mechanics helper then, in the 60s, and learned to drive to move trucks and trailers for service or just to get them out of the way but whenever an empty trailer had to be hauled in or out I usually got the short straw and drove the worn out spotter.
When I first started I too heard the advice about using the trailer spike to prevent jacknifes, from bad drivers. If you do it on a slippery road, it ensures leaving the road trailer first. It used to be standard practice with owner operators pulling other peoples trailers, not for safety seasons, but to prevent wearing out the brakes on the tractor he owned.
As far as hours of service, we were allowed to work 70hours every eight days and pressure to shave hours from the company was relentless. Because I refused to do it, I was often given the worst equipment or runs, This hurts your wages because because we were paid by the mile. This was with a union job, non union companies frequently paid no attention to the regs. In 1983 my union carrier had gone bankrupt due to deregulation and I went to work for a non union company. The first week, I got back on a Thursday and said, I guess I am done until next tuesday because I have 68 hours in. The boss threw me a blank logbook and said, here is another 70 hours and sent me back out that night.
If you would not drive a tandem axle tractor without rear brakes, you would not have been employer. It was the industry standard for many years. As far as a maximum 10% overload, the company I worked 17 years for was notorious for overloads, The employees had a saying " it ain’t heavy if it ain’t a hundred". They were talking about 100,000 pounds payload on a 45 foot trailer. We had heavy equipment because we hauled so many overloads so our maximum legal load to bring us to the 80,000 lb maximum was 44000 lb. The maximum fine for overload in NY state was $100 for over on an axle and $100 for over on the gross. Maximum fine $200 dollars. We also had no permanent scales to cross. The stat police had to catch you with a station wagon with portable scales in. I got stopped a few times with so much weight on that even though I was up on the scale with my outside tires, my inside tires were still on the ground. The trooper put blocks under the scales and my tractor could not make the climb. He had to let me go. When I pulled two 45 foot trailers on the NY Thruway I could legally gross 143,000 lb., but I has 34 wheels on the ground with 9 axles, and yes,no front brakes.
What I meant when I asked about mixing equipment was, how did it work if you had a tractor with ABS and a trailer without and visa versa?
“Oldtimer, I take it as You mean the front brakes to lock up.
I’d much prefer the front brakes to lock up, because if the rear brakes do it first, I don’t have any control anymore.” You have it backward. If the front wheels lock up you may or may not spin, but if you do, with the front wheels locked up you cannot regain control because the steering is no longer operable. With the rear wheels locked up the steering is still operable and you can correct a skid.
I use mine unless I’m just going to be driving from the gas pumps to a parking space at Sam’s Club. Even then I do sometimes. And I require others in my car to wear them. I recognize their right to decide if they want to to wear a seatbelt in their own car but I don’t want their body flying around and hitting me if we’re in a wreck. If you’ve seen video of the inside of a car when a wreck occurs and someone isn’t buckled up you see them getting tossed around like a piece of chicken in a bag of flour! And anyone in the car with that happening is gonna be pummeled by a real life rag doll.
My aunt bought a brand-new Malibu, circa 1972, and immediately upon getting home from the dealership, she took a steak knife and cut the seat belts out of her brand new car. When I asked her why she did that, her answer was: If I had an accident and broke my arm, I wouldn’t be able to open the seatbelt, and I could be trapped in a burning car.
I then pointed out that, sans seatbelt, she might be unconscious and thus could be trapped in a burning car, or–even if she was conscious–a broken arm would likely preclude her from being able to open the door… with the same outcome.
No seat belt for me due to medical reason. In case of an accident, if the seat belt holds my torso back and my head violently moves forward it’ll snap my neck . . . lights out for ever !
No I haven’t. If my front wheels lock up, the vehicle, whether it be a car or anything ells, will plough straight ahead and I can release the brakes enough to unlock and steer. If my rear brakes lock up first, I’m not in command of the vehicle anymore as nobody can predict which way my ass is gonna get in front of my nose and to which degree.
If you go to an inspection here in Europe with a vehicle and they find out that your rear brakes will lock up before the front, the vehicle will fail miserably.
If you have a car - anything - with abs, that situation should not be possible.
They have corresponding sensors on tractor and trailer, no correspondance, no abs. Today, it will be very difficult to find a tractor or a trailer without abs. There are several economic incentives to get equipment fitted with abs ect.
Once in a while I would give a neighbor a ride to the big city to visit her daughter on my way to work. I had a new Olds with a bench seat and I’m short so had the seat close. She was very large though and try as she would there just was not enough belt to go around her and fasten it. So I just drove very carefully. Later when I had a car with a split bench or buckets, it was not problem. Never had a problem but she was a little concerned on an icy road when I had to maneuver between two spun out cars. No way to stop, just close your eyes (kidding).
Belts do kill a few, but statistics largely favor them and one can’t pick their accidents. Have used them since the mid-50’s when my dad installed aircraft style belts in our cars. No accidents, but I know some who came through serious collisions with no or minor injury while wearing belts, and also know of several without belts or wearing belts too loosely who were killed, sometimes while being thrown from the vehicle or were partially out of the vehicle at it rolled over.
Some decades ago two pro football players were killed exiting a VW sunroof when it rolled over. My father-in-law refused to wear them (reasoned that he might get trapped in a burning vehicle) until he was hit at an intersection and ended up wedged under the dash and unconscious - that made him a believer. Have been the first responder at several otherwise minor accidents where non-wearers suffered head wounds from hitting windshield or dash, lots and lots of blood.
One friend witnessed a ~ 25-30mph head-on of two similar model cars where one couple wearing belts walked away while the other two, unbelted, were dead on the scene, essentially decapitated when they half exited the windshield and fell back in.
A college friend’s passenger refused to belt up one day because she didn’t want to wrinkle her coat. They were hit, the belted driver wasn’t hurt while her friend ended up receiving a series of face reconstructions and was permanently disfigured.
