[Marc F.]

Some facts--

1) I am a professional driver, its what I do for a living.

a) I try to leave 7 seconds following time ahead of me
--look up the Smith System for driving
b) I try to be considerate of others
c) few people are considerate of me in my work enviroment
when they are I make sure to wave to them if I can
d) Ive had more safety training than you can believe
including 3 one day courses for motorcycles, etc, etc.

2) Trucks require ~665 ft to stop when fully loaded

a) cars can stop in ~150 to 200ft from the same speed
b) if you let them (trucks) be stupid at your expense
you can be dead (this is my worse fear)
c) I average 78,000 lbs, your car is 2000 to 4000 lbs
I will get injured or dead in a wreck with a car, maybe,
the PERSON in the car will most certainly be injured
or dead. Oh and a PERSON drives the truck too.
d) Figure the energy contained in a truck at 78k doing 60 mph
e) at 78k I cannot accelerate to pass like a car can

3) More and more trucks cant cheat the logs, they are going
electronic (a good thing for those indivduals and corps that
push the limits and make the rest of us look bad)

a) I switched to a company that had this, because I was tired
of being pushed to run illegal. I like my clean record, its
what keeps me in a job.
b) being behind a guy doing half the speed limit and unable to
pass for 30 minutes cuts my pay in half. period. how
would you feel if I came to your work place and cut your pay?
And yes this has happened to me several times. I didnt feel
that he needed to be "run over" but I though it would have
been nice for him to help me pass safely.

I am not saying that I am perfect, I have made bonehead moves in
traffic, I screwed up this week. Sorry, I'm human. But if you can
take a different route and let the trucks do their thing you might
consider it. A truck can only take certain routes.