Got My First Informal Reprimand But Not For Anything Driving Related.

I had an collision mitigation today oddly enough. Two cars in front of me a Jeep slammed on brakes and swerved into the shoulder for whatever reason. About to **** their pants probably.

I enjoy every other feature this collision system has except for the emergency braking. Once it activates it almost takes over all control of the brakes. It is more dangerous than anything.

Company called and asked if everything was alright, and that was that.

These sensors go crazy for no reason all the time! My front radar reacts to anyone exitting the exit ramp to the side of me?? Like WTF?, learnt to just add throttle it goes away. Have had that big red crash warning box light up, without a dang thing in front of me? Following too close , yeah to keep ready to repass after the 4 wheelers I let go by, FINALLY get past.....

Some these idiots get up ur butt, you drop back over to right lane, let em pass then they decide "Oh I don't need to hurry" and slow down. Had 1 idiot other day with barely room on my left behind a car oin front of him, he jerks over right in front of me, I gave him the "You're # 1 Buddy finger", honking my city horn.... So many friggin morons on the roads lol

My truck at Crete locked up the brakes one time for no reason. I was in Phoenix last Spring about five miles from the terminal around 0309 on a Thursday with an empty trailer. Zero traffic except me. I approached a bumpy, three tracks RR crossing at 20 MPH in a 35 MPH zone. Brakes locked and brought me to a quick stop 100 feet before the tracks. No trains, cars, shadows, crossing arms, dogs, homeless people....Nothing. Sat there completely dead stick for 10 seconds, then all control was restored back to me: The Driver.

****ants will mine social media just to cause trouble. No need to let them have a window into your life. I got rid of that crap several years back and refuse to participate in it. One of the better decisions I made. Don't miss it or the troubles it stirs up one bit.

I understand why they have these systems and I would say about 80% of the time I'm ok with them and agree with it. But that other 20% just irritates me to no end. I've had the lane guidance system ping me all day today because it's picking up lines on the road from the rain. What really gets to me is these new automatics, apparently they have a GPS or something inside them that cuts the power when your almost at the top of the hill to save fuel. It sucks when your passing someone n then all of a sudden it decides its time to neutral drop n they start pulling away.

Sometimes the safety technology picks up on hazards that aren't there. Overpasses, cars slowing down to exit in the lane next to you, other vehicles moving into your lane without leaving enough space, etc.

If you can afford to spend the money or if you can save up enough points on your preferred truck stop rewards card, a dash cam is a great way to cover your butt in some of these situations. The dash cam can record longer clips to help show the lead up to an event that your company's video might not have recorded.

I lost my dash cam while cleaning my truck out. I've been without it for a few months. This topic has reminded me to make sure I get a new one soon.

Dash cam is a sound investment. I’ll admit there was one second that elapsed that I did not react fast enough. Thinking the other car would continue faster. At that point I had been locked out. It’s even hard to turn effectively.

If you would like to see how it goes I made a clip. I’ve seen before, and the other guy’s reply that some trucks do full lockout. Mine will do about a 90% until at 30MPH.

https://youtu.be/-WHU0f8ixgI

Not a YouTuber at all!

Funny that you posted this. I was going to ask you and the Knight drivers here their thoughts on the smart drive feature on the trucks. I too had a sit down with my DM about my score. It is a 83....

On Monday my DM called and said I had a few close calls and he needs to review the videos with me. I was near the terminal on Tuesday so I stopped in to review the videos. What I saw was a joke.... All the events in question were me getting cut off by other drivers. No reckless driving, no speeding, no tailgating. Only one of the ten videos showed me following too close behind a driver, I only did that so I had enough momentum to pass him.

I was told to reduce speed when I get cut off but in those situations I couldn't slow down fast enough. Truckers would cut me off as soon as their trailer passed my bumper. I'm talking about 1 foot in front of me. Most of them by FedEx drivers.... In the video it's clearly visible that my speed is dropping whenever someone cuts me off but I can't break fast enough to not have the collision sensor go crazy and I'm definitely not slamming on the breaks. The situations didn't call for that as they quickly sped off faster than I was driving.

Another instance was a trucker playing games with me for whatever reason. He was doing 50mph in a 65 and I was coming up behind him. I changed lanes to the middle safe enough to pass. When I got to about his fifth wheel area he sped up and I couldn't pass. I safely got back into the right lane behind him but he then slams on his breaks to about 40mph. Then speeds off. The video started with me along side him, showed my lane change and shows him break hard and my truck getting too close. Cuts off before he speeds up..

Davy, you are right that we have no way to defend our actions or to explain why we did it. It's your too close, do better. I consider myself a safe and aware driver. I see situations before they happen and adjust to them as needed. They are not out here and judge our driving from a 30 sec video. My DM was cool about it though but I know this comes from people over him.

He gave me the We take safety and the bonuses very serious here speech

I laughed at that part. 12hrs of training a rookie driver for flatbed is what they consider taking safety seriously? In my opinion, there is no way to get the job done efficiently by driving in a way to get that bonus. I just don't see that yet. And I agree that it is better to not get the bonus and complete the run in a timely manner

I think the idea behind the smartdrive is good, I believe they said that it showed upwards of 80 percent of collisions were the fault of cars, and substantially reduced claims based on that. But the mechanics of it suck. Its irritating. For the most part I ignore it. I have the lights taped over because they mounted it right where it shines in my eyes at night and I like my dash lights really low. I keep backlighting as low as possible. In general, I ignore the whole thing and just drive. I usually only take heed of it as I get near the end of the month.

My radar needs to be recalibrated monthly, on the Kenworths, the radar plaque sits on the lower flexible valance (bumper) and it constantly needs tweaking. I usually do it with my foot every few days. Anyway the result is that I get 10 to 15 false threats with the accompanying breaking and slamming me into the dash per day. When its calibrated I get about 2 per day. The collision mitigation system is a lawsuit waiting to happen, but outside of that, I hadnt been dinged in smartdrive for the false readings and hard braking until recently. The last few videos claim unsafe following distance without a car in sight, and one of them a big rig had some sort of issue, the driver jammed on his brakes and cut over two lanes to the shoulder right in front of me. My DM hasnt said anything about it, and it didnt get referred to be coached on, but still dropped the score. Its just generally annoying, and I like things to function, the system rarely functions correctly.

Essentially, its the cost of doing business though. My DM and TM know the problems with it and while they dont really have leeway there, they can and often do in other areas. My DM will hand me layover pay, breakdown pay, reimbursements and just about any other pay for just about anything you could imagine. Ive had times where I actually told him not to worry about it. I dont take advantage of them on it, it all works out in the end. So I sort of take it with a grain of salt. I like my safety manager, hes a good kid. He also knows Im a smart a$$ but safe and reliable, some things I let go.

Im still dumbfounded at the lack of training and cohesion on the flatbed program and hopefully your experiences can be a catalyst to get them to change some. I would be skeptical but if OS said they could use better training, and Ive heard it from others there that I have talked with, It seems to be an issue. I take pride in Knight and enjoy working there. Hopefully they can make the changes needed.

These posts remind me how blessed I am to drive a truck with all this technology turned off. Or maybe it hasn't even been there at all, I don't know. It is a 2016 Volvo. The only thing I wanted to change was a cruise control speed limit of 68, I asked and the shop removed it. And when I had a newer Cascadia with another company, it gave me troubles all the time. For some reason it treated green highway signs as a collision threat and would hard break every time I passed under - a very unpleasant feeling.

Wow this conversation makes me appreciate the way System does things. I mean, we still have all this automotive collision mitigation junk (my opinion of it all) but my sensors are turned way down and let me take over if it starts hitting the brakes. And mine usually only hits the brakes with cruise on. We have drive cams too (just outward facing) and a safety points system but I’m astounded at how little they call me. I’ve had several hard braking events including two days ago where someone literally cut right in front of me and slammed on the brakes for absolutely no reason whatsoever (I was literally sitting in the right lane with cruise on at 65 maintaining my lane). We were coming up to an exit so I thought they wanted to take it but they didn’t. Super weird. But yeah not a peep from the office. I’ve even had a couple critical events where I miscalculated my stopping distance while empty or bobtail because of how bumpy or wet the road was and I thought for sure they’d call me in and I didn’t hear a thing. I’m finally getting used to how light these aluminum flatbed trailers are.

System does have a speed policy and I was on the report one time for too many five overs but they don’t up my safety score unless I have too many 10 overs. I roll down hills at the speed limit. I kinda disagree with the needing to speed to make more money thing. I just totally don’t think it’s worth it even if it gets you there a few minutes earlier. The possibility of getting fired, losing a safety bonus, or getting a ticket just outweighs the reward IMO.

I agree with Andrey, I really don’t like all the electronics in the truck. Best job I ever had was when I worked at American Furniture. They let us cruise at the speed limit and didn’t have all that extra stuff in the trucks.