It’s the season for fun in the sun for holidaymakers but truck drivers who share the road with them are facing the summer blues.
Truckers hauling freight across Canada and into the U.S. said they are extra cautious around people who head out with trailers, RVs and boats hitched to four-wheelers.
Common complaints among truckers are about drivers who can’t keep their trailers within a lane, creep into the next lane on turns, and who do not maintain a safe distance around big rigs.
Longhaul driver Dawna Jacobsen knows that people don’t like to drive behind trucks. But she urges patience, especially when drivers are coming from a beach or park and merging onto a main road. “You cannot get up to highway speed right away, so wait and let the truck pass, don’t try and rush in front of them.”
Jacobsen, who was recognized as one of three 2023 Truckload Carriers Association’s Highway Angels of the Year, said people don’t realize how often a truck driver is preventing people from being in harm’s way by braking or moving over.
Leah Gorham feels that sometimes people forget they are hauling a trailer and cut her off. She regularly moves freight across the continent with her boyfriend Roland Bereczki.
She reiterated Jacobsen’s point that drivers don’t like following trucks.
She added that some trailers skip all over the road and don’t leave a lot of room for trucks. “In places like Wyoming, they don’t read the warning signs for strong winds. Sometimes they almost blow into my truck while trying to pass me.”
Sometimes, the trailer is wider than the vehicle hauling it, and the driver can’t see the road behind them, she added.
Veteran longhaul driver Lee Wood has seen cars driving slowly on a single-lane road, with a line-up of trucks and other vehicles behind them. When a passing lane opens up, he notices that they speed up to prevent trucks from going past. “They will do whatever it takes to keep you from passing them, and then slow right down,” he said.
This he said, happens a lot during summer with folks visiting cottages and driving around on vacation. “You won’t see locals doing this,” he added.
Jacobsen feels that some vehicles make her truck the finish line on the road. She can see them coming up at a good clip, and as soon as they pass, they scoot in front of the truck and slow down.
“Very close to the front of my truck is a very dangerous place. It takes a while for us to stop,” she said. “So, leave us in the dust, keep going. Don’t make me your finish line.”
Natural beauty is sometimes a distraction
Canada’s natural beauty is eye-catching and sometimes distracts drivers. Wood recalls an incident outside a park in Alberta in 2018 that left him shaken.
Getting out of the hills on a flat, straight stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway, he saw a huge grizzly bear down the road.
There were vehicles parked on both sides of the road on the narrow shoulders as people stepped out to take pictures. Two vehicles in the passing lane behind him sped past him, only to slam on their brakes as they saw the grizzly. One moved into his lane.
Wood, evaluating the risks, had already been slowing down. He blew his horn and managed to maneuver his big rig between the vehicles with little room to spare. “I thought I’m going to bounce them both into the ditch on either side, like a billiard shot in the middle. What scared me were the 15 people standing on the shoulder with their backs to me. I don’t know how many people would have been killed.”
He said that he was shaking and pulled over at the nearest safe spot to park his truck.
At the end of a 14- to 16-hour work shift, when drivers have been driving for 11 to 13 hours, they scramble to find parking as campers bed down in spots marked for trucks at rest areas and truck stops.
Wood recalls the time he saw a camper parked in one parking spot with pop outs on either side taking up another two spots. The pick-up truck hauling the camper was parked in between two other spots.
Those were five less parking spots for truck drivers working within hours-of-service rules.
Drivers bound by hours-of-service rules
“It is frustrating as a driver since we are on the clock and can go into violation by the end of our hours,” Jacobsen said.
Gorham noted that states like Nebraska have very small rest areas and sometimes those spots are taken by campers and RVs. She needs about 15 minutes for a team driver changeover but says it is sometimes difficult to find a safe place to stop.
These professional drivers urged four-wheeler drivers to be aware of their surroundings and be considerate while enjoying their vacation.
Jacobsen said that our roads would be lot safer and more pleasant to drive on if people drove like they were getting their licence.
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