Tailgating

jjdrer

My brother was a semi driver and and now drives a smaller truck. He regularly has cars tail-gating him. It is scary. There are so close to the back of the truck all you can see is the the car roof backwards, which I discovered when I was a passenger. On a country trip I was aware that if another vehcile came out of a side road at a T-Junction and he had to brake even just slightly it was very likely the car following would have gone under the back of the truck. Even before he started driving a truck himself he said there is some "cowboys" on the road that give other truckies a bad reputation. On one occasion on a country road he tried to pass a car on a country road that was doing 50kpm.(I was a passenger and watching his speedo) He decided they were out sightseeing, but he wanted to get to his destination before dark so he decided he would sit back from them, pull out and pass them in a safe manner. As he started to overtake them the driver of the car decided to speed up on the inside lane and fluctuate his speed, preventing us ot completely overtake safely or pull back in behind the car. It was scary. My brother could have used his overhead emergency lights to force right of way, but it is illegal for a Motor Vehicle Rescue Truck to do so whilst mobile. They are only allowed to use them whilst stationary - loading or unloading a vehicle onto or behind their vehicle. They must switch them off once they have entered into traffic or they can be fined. I know another truckie who had a car tailgating him going into a country town on a downhill slope. Rather than hit the brakes to reduce speed as quickly as he should have so the car wouldn't go under him, he flicked his brakes on and off and slowed down slowly. He had already done that a few Km. back but the car didn't slow at all. He worked out afterwards the car was so close to him that his stop lights would have been top of the car level and the driver probably wouldn't have seen them anyway as it was a little low car. He copped a speeding fine which he might otherwise not have got. Fines issued for trucks are higher than for cars too.