Near miss

[CD55]

Hi all
I came this close to getting tangled up with a truck.

 

[dashy]

Did the rigid truck (the first one that went by) Slow down during this footage?

 

[Deleted member 46308]

That was close, nice to have the dashcam though!

 

[petepete]

not to put too finer point on it ..

but..

it was pretty obvious the truck needed to overtake well before he signalled...

and you were cruising/ hogging the middle of the motorway with another 2 free lanes on your left !!!!!

 

[kamkar]

1 thing is for sure, you dont want to be alongside a truck for longer than you need to.

Will not comment on lanes and so on, as i do not know enuff about American rules and culture on the road.
And not less since that is not my strong side even in the contry where i live and know the rules ( work in progress )

 

[CD55]

Did the rigid truck (the first one that went by) Slow down during this footage?

No it didn't

not to put too finer point on it ..

but..

it was pretty obvious the truck needed to overtake well before he signalled...

and you were cruising/ hogging the middle of the motorway with another 2 free lanes on your left !!!!!

This is a work zone posted for 55 mph.
I had my cruise control set for 55mph.
The lane I occupied (number 3) is 1 of the 2 lanes (3 and 4) used for slower traffic.
Lane number 4 does not end.
It goes all the way to the 580/680 interchange.
So there is little reason for the vehicle to have to overtake from the lane on the right.
The reason I am in lane number 3 is that traffic is constantly entering the freeway from onramps and merging in to lane 4.
The traffic in lanes 1 and 2 do not obey the law moving typically at 65-70mph or more.
If you occupy these lanes you will have someone glued to your rear bumper, flashing high beams and cursing at you.
The truck has a maxium speed for a vehicle towing of 55mph.
I felt that this was unsafe operation of a commercial vehicle and was tempted (but have not) sending the video to the carriers home office or the Highway Patrol.
Maybe I should review my own video, think again and adjust...

 

[Gibson99]

on the interstate and even local freeways, i always make a conscious effort to not be next to a trailer for very long, whether it's me sort of camping out next to them or them moving alongside then matching my speed. i'll speed up or slow down to make sure that if they decide to change lanes or swerve my way, they won't make contact. if that angers the guy behind me, oh well. at least i'll be alive and uninjured.

and yes, i'm also that guy that slows down and lets big trucks merge. because while i've never driven a big rig myself, i have driven commercial trucks with trailers and had to cut people off because nobody would let me merge. so i try to make it easier on commercial drivers - no reason to be a jerk about it.

and no, i'm not saying you were being a jerk. the 18-wheeler was, and obviously didn't check his mirrors well enough - you were NOT in his blind spot and if he did see you, he must have thought maybe you were far enough back... but maybe he was distracted by the construction or wreck or whatever the flashy lights were on the other side of the road. had there been contact, i believe your video would have shown that the truck driver was at fault. it doesn't show whether there was someone on your left preventing you from getting out of the way faster, but that doesn't change the fact that the trucker simply acted like you weren't even there.

 

[Gibson99]

one last thing i'll just leave here...

and even though it's george carlin, it's actually safe for work - no profanity!

 

[Error7]

Hi all
I came this close to getting tangled up with a truck.

You should have seen the 2nd truck gaining on the first and rolling faster than your vehicle. It was obvious that he would need to pull into the lane you were occupying in order to pass the 1st truck. The 2nd truck driver indicated his intentions. You should have done 1 of 2 things:
1) Slow down in order to create a big enough gap for the 2nd truck to move into.
2) Move into the next lane (if it was free) so the 2nd truck had room to move over.
Whether he was speeding or not is not for you to say. You aint the law. From watching your video I got the impression that you weren't concentrating on your driving.
Sorry to sound harsh but you need to learn from this experience. Go with the flow, don't try to go against it.

 

[CD55]

Here is another view of the work zone.

 

[balakov100]

Do you really think he can hear you honking your horn?

 

[GJHS]

@CD55 we have armchair critics here, you have nothing to prove. You can't "hog" a lane by cruising the speed limit. The truck driver passed on the right and clearly wasn't patient enough to wait till he was clear. No one has ever seen a truck use its size to intimidate you to move over? Maybe just maybe, if you were aware that he was going to move into your lane because of what appeared like a slowing truck in front of him, you could have slowed down expecting him to be an a** and do that. Either way you were at no fault, would not be faulted, and while driving had less time to pick apart the situation than watching a video.

Hey this chair is kind of lumpy

 

[M---]

@CD55: Holy hell that was close! From my perspective, you did no wrong. If there had been a collision, it would have been the trucker's fault.

Analysis:
-Lanes 1 & 2 were clear, so you weren't blocking anybody.
-In this highway configuration, it is appropriate to occupy lane 3, even if you're not the faster-moving vehicle
-Lane 4 is best left empty so that vehicles can enter/exit the freeway without risk of a crash.
-The law doesn't expect drivers to be mind-readers; that's why we have the rules of the road.
-Rules of the road dictate that if Trucker B wants to change lanes, it's his responsibility to ensure the path is clear.
-Flipping on the turn signals is not ensuring that the path is clear.
-Rules of the road dictate that you've got to take evasive actions, if you can, which you did!

Armchair driver here:
-You were lucky to have evaded, but you'd be advised to also try to move left, since you knew that lane 2 was clear.
-But don't take this as strong criticism-- crashes and near-misses happen in the span of a couple of seconds, and you've only got a split second to make your decisions.

Other notes:
-If Trucker B wanted to overtake, he could have safely done so in the two empty lanes.
-If Trucker B wanted to overtake, and wasn't confident that you were behind his trailer, he could have waited a few more seconds until he was confident that he was ahead of you.
-Trucker B probably couldn't hear your horn. (not that it imposes any additional responsibility on you).
-Trucker B was already tailgating Trucker A, so didn't have enough space to move further forward.
-It's hard to tell if a car is safely behind your truck or not, so it's better to err on the side of caution.
-If I were you, I'd forward the Youtube link to Trucker B's company.

Once I was driving an articulated bus (18m/60') along the highway, in the HOV lane. One of the riders pointed out to me that there was a cop car behind me, lights and siren on. It was daytime, so I hadn't noticed the flashy lights, and couldn't hear the siren either. I slowed down, cop passed me in the next lane. Not sure was he was after, but it wasn't me.

 

[Gibson99]

to add to M---'s well-put-together commentary: since it was dark, you could have used your high beams to help trucker B see you. true, it's considered illegal to flash your brights like that, but it's much safer than being hit.

but as M and others have said - it's a WHOLE lot easier to criticize actions in a video, after the fact when we have loads of time to think about it, as opposed to the heat of the moment when you're startled and caught unaware. behind teh computer screen, we knew what was going to happen. behind the wheel, you didn't. you acted appropriately and thankfully there was no bent metal or broken people.

 

[Tim]

Another ?problem?/rule posted in many places where there are more than 3 lanes in the US is that trucks may be restricted to the right two lanes only.
The purpose, of course, is to keep the "fast" lane/lanes open for four wheelers, but it also cause truckers to have to make passing moves on the right because the second lane from the right is blocked by cars and trucks doing at or below the speed limit, just like in the video.

 

[balakov100]

At any rate, I would send the video to the Trucking Company if you can find the info on them.

In the US the 'USDOT' Number is a good place to start.
https://ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMS/


These are the places to look
http://s2.postimg.org/vb5i35tzd/swift.png

The Swift Truck has it on the Door on the bottom.
Another popular place is on the side of the sleeper, towards the bottom.

 

[sludgeguts]

Here is another view of the work zone.

The time/date stamp is put in place by the cam - how do you get it to bounce all over the place like that?

 

[jokiin]

The time/date stamp is put in place by the cam - how do you get it to bounce all over the place like that?

that's the stabilisation "feature" that YouTube has, can make anything look like crap

 

[sludgeguts]

that's the stabilisation "feature" that YouTube has, can make anything look like crap

Seriously? That timestamp is fixed in place, YT offers to 'stabilise' the clip and that's what it does???

 

[jokiin]

Seriously? That timestamp is fixed in place, YT offers to 'stabilise' the clip and that's what it does???

if you look at the centre of the frame the image is quite stable, I think that's where they figure the image is meant to be stable, because the bonnet and timestamp are fixed in position compared to what's going on they appear to float about, the timestamp is most noticable but look at the leading edge of the bonnet and you'll see the same effect

and yeah, it does a crap job for this purpose