Tips to Help You Stay Safe While Sharing the Road with Truck Drivers
It’s quite difficult to drive a tractor-trailer, especially when the operator is on the road with other motorists who are overly aggressive. Here are a few tips that can help you avoid an accident when sharing the road with truck drivers:
- Avoid the truck’s blind spots. Blind spots are large and numerous on tractor-trailers. They are at the very rear of the truck, the mid-left section of the trailer and the entire right section of the trailer. When attempting to pass a truck, always do so as quickly as possible and make sure you don’t spend much time hanging in the truck’s blind spot.
- Never cut off truck drivers. When you are merging or changing lanes, make sure you leave plenty of space ahead of the truck. It takes approximately three times as much time for a truck to stop than a regular passenger car. This is also why you should avoid riding between two big rigs, as a sudden delay in traffic could easily leave you sandwiched between two vehicles unable to make fast stops.
- Do not prevent truck drivers from merging. Truck drivers need a lot of space to safely merge. Do not prevent them from doing so. They are much higher up off the road than you are, so they could quite possibly see a hazard coming up that requires them to get over. Slow down and let them merge instead of attempting to speed ahead — this will go a long way toward avoiding a potential collision.
- Do not become impatient. It’s understandable to get frustrated if you are in a hurry and have to wait for a truck to back into a driveway or make a turn in front of you. Just keep in mind that the drivers are not intentionally trying to get in your way or annoy you — they are just trying to complete the maneuver as safely as possible. It does no one any good to get impatient.
If you need to explore your legal options after a Georgia truck accident, speak with a knowledgeable Atlanta attorney at McMenamy Law LLC.
