Hm
Posted by gigantichound on 07 May 2008 at 06:36 pm | Tagged as: Toronto, Travel
This does help explain why dump truck drivers blow red lights so ruthlessly:
“Our trucks are supposed to carry 21 tonnes. But every time we are pulled on a scale, it’s around 28, 29, sometimes 30 tonnes in there.
“That’s dangerous, not only for the driver, but for everyone else on the road. The brake system is designed for a load of 21 tonnes. When the truck is eight or nine tonnes overloaded, the momentum doesn’t let you stop unless you really stand on the brakes.
“When the truck is overloaded and you’re going 100 kilometres an hour, how do you expect it to stop?”
Gill said drivers aren’t allowed to get out at a job site to check and there’s no way from inside the truck to determine a load’s weight.
Even worse, he said, is that drivers who question overweight loads are often banished from a work site.
And just to add insult to injury: the leading case on Criminal Code dangerous driving involves the driver of an overloaded truck who ran a red. (Mind you he was also going too fast for the weather conditions.)
I’m glad you posted this item. This morning a main news story on CBC was the non-news that eventually senior citizens must stop driving. OK: I’m a Senior Citizen. What I notice is a widespread scofflaw of the posted speed limit, and etc. etc. etc. and blah blah blah. I even carry a copy of that portion of the HIghway Traffic Act which pertains to speed limits in the glove compartment in case am ever stopped for impeding traffic. I will never self-righteously defend my driving practices. And I notice that: 1. I wait until at least 10 a.m. before venturing from my driveway, assuming that most of the speedsters will have got there by then, with the exception of the gravel/dump trucks; 2. I am home before dusk; 3. when a pedestrian, I ask a young person to “cross me, please” and find these very willing and cheerful, even those with skate-boards; and 4. occasionally, because I NEVER exceed the posted limit, there’s a “parade” behind me, 12-15 vehicles, on the admittedly dangerous 52 Highway. My conclusion is that driving practices have changed around me as I aged, and it’s not MY fault that I passed my driving test in ca 1952. My sister-in-law, who is Danish, asked my brother where on earth he learned to drive, he drives so piously, and he replied that he learned from Parker Hull, who used to drive our small Massachusetts town’s hearse (which served our fantastic number of churches: 1. Baptist, 2. Congregational, 3. Unitarian, 4. Episcopalian; 5. French Catholic, 6. Polish Catholic, 7. Greek Orthodox, just for starters). Well, I didn’t learn from Mr. Hull, by the time I learned to drive, he’d passed to his own reward, I learned from my mother, who was dynamic and situational, and internationally-famous (in a good–even brilliant– way) abruptly in her 60′s. So, I wasn’t taught by Mr. Hull, I was taught by an erratic mother, but nevertheless, am startled at driving practices these days hereabouts, and believe that the Mother’s Day old-age driving warnings today were just another way of zapping Photo-Radar, which I mourn. If you want to make Mothers Everywhere (i.e. in Ontario) happy, bring back Photo-Radar.