re: Truckers are the worst drivers and possibly the worst people

How is your maintaining momentum more important than MY maintaining momentum? Because you are heavier? Does a f250 have the right to cut off a prius for the same reason?

They are possibly some of the least educated members of the workforce. The fact they are part of the workforce makes them much higher up that totem pole than they really should be

Just like everyone should have to wait tables for a month in their lives in order to appreciate waiters and waitresses and treat them with respect, as well as tip decently - everyone should have to get behind the wheel of a full 18 wheeler with a 53 foot trailer and see how hard it is to drive one.

I'm a US Marshal but I have a CDL (from a previous career in another life), and I've had to drive fully loaded trucks with 53 foot trailers a few times in traffic. On very few occasions we've had crimes committed where the truck was part of the evidence or the truck contained potential evidence, and I was the lucky winner that happened to have a CDL.

First of all, they take miles upon miles to get up to speed - that's going hammer down, pedal to the floor without letting up at all. Second, they take about half that distance to actually slow down too. Stopping one that's empty takes an even longer distance, as they're designed to stop better under a load. Either way it might take a truck a half a mile to slow down to a stop from 65mph.

This requires all moves to be planned WAY in advance, you constantly have to be scanning traffic, turns, and potential idiot drivers a mile up the road and planning to react to them that far in advance. This makes driving in traffic or with a lot of cars around a nerve wracking experience, especially if/when you need to change lanes.

I challenge any of you here to at least sit behind the wheel of a truck and trailer and attempt to gauge the distance of objects 70+ feet behind you in the mirrors. Because the back end of that trailer is roughly 70 feet behind the driver.

I've had tons of frustrating experiences with shitty truck drivers, almost daily. For years my daily commute required me to travel on I-40 for 48 miles both ways, and that interstate is the most heavily traveled by trucks. But for every shitty one, there's a hundred good ones that are constantly scanning the road a mile ahead, trying to balance planning ahead that far with the traffic in the immediate area around them while maintaining speed and also navigating directions to their destination.

It's a tough job and I know I wouldn't want to do it, just driving them short distances on rare occasions is enough for my nerves to be completely shot by the end of it.

Nope, it was the company drivers. They are legit the worst. Companies can’t find drivers, so they hire whoever they can get. These pos drivers will not even move over if you are on the side of the road. Hell they’ll get right on the white line. I have no respect for them.

There are too many drivers who DGAF and too many companies that look the other way so long as they haul fast.