No free rides on the highway
STAY BACK: ‘Drafting’ behind a big rig to save gas is unsafe and bad for your vehicle
After a few decades of piloting a commercial rig, I’ve come to realize we drivers have a lot in common with motorcycle riders. Not trail bikes, of course, but those big highway cruisers.
We’re both able to think fast, make split-second, life-saving decisions, and drive and ride as though we’re playing a game of chess — already knowing what our next three moves will be.
The introductory piece to Driving Editor Andrew McCredie’s ‘Hyper Miler Challenge’ suddenly flipped my memory banks into personal hyper drive-memory mode. Specifically, he wrote about ‘drafting’ in a line of traffic.
Even though rigs are long and heavy, it doesn’t mean drivers can’t see and feel what’s going on around us, particularly when we’re rolling down the highway. By ‘highway’ I’m referring to anything not in a city block, where it’s impossible to get the rig into one of the top cruising gears. In those cruising gears, we’re floating down the slab.
One trick a lot of young drivers still try to pull is a form of drafting. Some daredevil slides right up to the rear doors of my trailer, lifts his foot off the gas pedal, and lets the air I’m displacing behind my rig pull his vehicle down the highway.
This saves him gas, or so he hopes.
The thing is, I know every single time that has been attempted on me. If I missed seeing the car slide in behind me, I can instantly feel it. It feels as though I just ran over a small speed bump. My smooth ride suddenly shudders.
I will then do a quick ‘snake’ move and my trailer will weave left to right and I’ll spot the daredevil. I then lift my foot off my throttle, and let him quickly figure out that I’m not giving him a free ride.
I don’t want his or her death on my conscience and this move works every time. We rig drivers aren’t fooled that easily.
These four-wheelers think they can save money by having the rigs pull them along down the highway, but when they’re doing that, their vehicle’s engine isn’t being supplied power to keep the oil and liquids moving, and they’re quickly burning out their valves and heating up their engine.
In addition, they won’t get air into the radiator to cool the engine because they’re tucked in so close.
It sounds like a great idea, but it’s a lose-lose proposition.
Some rig drivers will tap their brakes. The car driver is suddenly blinded, then shocked, then over reacts and often goes off the road or into another lane and an accident is sure to happen.
Again, stupid move. All to save a few bucks worth of gas?
While on the topic of brakes, I firmly believe that showing your brake lights indicates your poor driving habits. We’ve all seen folks who have their left foot on the brake and right on the gas pedal. You can smell them going down the road. Brake pads really stink when they’re red hot. I see this every day.
It’s the same with big rigs. Commercial truck drivers who still prefer shifting gears try to decide which gear to use to slow down safely without having to stab the air brakes. We also don’t want to run out of air.
A good rig driver puts his brakes on to come to a full stop. Car drivers should do the same thing, but I don’t expect to see that in my lifetime.
My wife drives a Challenger. It’s fast. It has gears. She also has tricky sequential brake lights that she likes to show off, but doesn’t use them so much anymore … not since she’s grown fond of playing chess. She now plans her driving moves so much better.
Now, if only I could get her to start using the paddle shifters on her steering wheel, I would be a much happier back seat driver.
I could fill a newspaper with stories about life on the road, but why not share yours? Send them to Driving editor Andrew McCredie at amccredie@postmedia.com.