What Truckers Wish You Knew

Driving with my husband this week, I was surprised when he asked me to turn the lights on. "What for?" I asked. "It's a bright, sunny day."

"Well," he said, "I wish everyone would have their lights on all the time." I asked him why, and he explained that if more people drove with their lights on, we could save ourselves from a lot of accidents. I was impressed enough with the reasoning behind his response to ask what he'd want all drivers to know if he had a chance--and especially, young drivers. 
This is what he told me:

1. Keep your lights on during the daytime too. Everyone knows you're supposed to turn your car's lights on at night--half hour before sunset and half hour after sunrise. But why do you need them in daylight? If your car is gray or brown, it can easily blend in with the surrounding area. Say you are at a stop sign and looking very quickly to your left and then right. If a gray car is approaching the intersection, it might be easy to miss UNLESS the headlights are on. It's much easier to see lights than a speeding gray car.
2. STOP speeding. My husband is on the road all day every day for hours. He says sixty to 75 percent of drivers on the highway are passing him--which means they are breaking the law. He has seen three fatalities--all gross--in his years as a trucker, and all were caused by speeding drivers. Roads were made for a certain speed, and after you pass that speed, all bets are off. You may have a big SUV or pickup truck, but that doesn't mean you should be endangering other people--even if you feel very safe in your car. 
3. Nix the tailgating. Yeah, you may be in a hurry, but that doesn't mean you should be tailgating someone. If he or she stops suddenly, you won't be able to stop in time to avoid hitting his or her car. Leave one car length per 10 miles an hour between you and the driver ahead of you.
4. Cutting people off is an accident waiting to happen. "Your car weighs 2,000 pounds. My truck weights 80,000 pounds," says my husband. "If you cut me off, I don't have the ability to stop quickly. I won't get hurt, but I'll have to live with how badly hurt you are. And all of that could be avoided if you don't cut me off."
5. Last but not least, don't pull out of an intersection without watching to see who's coming. Be respectful of other cars already on the road you want to get onto. "That's the reason for the accident I saw this year--the driver just pulled out onto the road without looking to see who was already on it. Believe me, you don't want to know what happened. I wish I could unsee that."

My husband also has advice for the trucking regulators:

1. Truckers should not be allowed to drive eleven hours - it's another accident waiting to happen. Ten hours is plenty.
2. If a company is paying truckers by the mile, they will go faster to get where they're going and safety rules will be ignored. Every trucker should be paid by the hour, not the mile.

I know you can find more online about driving safety, but I thought it was important to share directly from a real trucker's experience. Hopefully you can share it with any new drivers you have at home--and older ones, too.