If you’ve ever seen a trucker veer his 80,000 pound 18-wheeler around a curve, there’s no reason to wonder if he knows better. He does. Here’s why.
The 2015 South Carolina Commercial Driver’s License Manual, which all truckers study to get a license to drive their monster trucks, tells them this:
- Slow to a safe speed before the curve. Never speed through it.
- Avoid brakes. Braking is dangerous, because it could cause the wheels to “lock up,” creating a dangerous skid.
Here’s an unexpected truth: truckers should actually go slowly enough so they actually need to accelerate slightly in the curve. This helps control the vehicle.
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When Truckers Speed Through A Curve
The manual states two things can happen if a semi-trailer speeds through a curve:
- Tires can lose traction, causing an uncontrollable, potentially devastating skid.
- The vehicle rolls over, like an enormous bolder on a mountainside headed toward a village of innocent people.
Big-rig trucks are tall vehicles. From what we can recall from high school physics class, that means they have high centers of gravity. When a truck speeds into a curve, the center of gravity can shift to the side—and if it shifts so far that it’s no longer above the truck’s wheel base, the truck will flip on its side. Rollover truck crashes have enormously high injury and death rates. Trust us: you don’t want to be anywhere nearby when this happens.
Don’t Let The Insurance Company Roll Over You
If you’re the victim of a tractor trailer accident, you likely face another Mack truck headed straight toward you: the insurance company that wants to get out of your injury case as cheaply as possible, and probably cares less for you than the trucker who caused the accident. Feel free to start a live chat right where you are to start paving the way for the insurance company to do what the trucker didn’t: the right thing.
