The Road is Their Office

While most of us view the road as the item we use to drive our vehicles from one place to another before work, for recreation or for performing our daily and weekly errands, for semi-truck drivers, this area is their office. These professionals log hours and miles that are unheard of by most of the user and their job is to haul hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of products from one place to another for us to have the ability to purchase or make use of these products. One of the dangers associated with this work for these truckers is you.

Yes, you are a danger to them, especially if you are someone that thinks it’s ok to linger next to a truck on the road. While their blind spot is certainly one place you want to avoid, every inch of space alongside a semi is an area that can be hazardous and dangerous for you when you’re on the road. If you are passing a truck on the road, you need to do so quickly and then get far enough away for the driver to be able to have space to drive the way they need to.

First of all, if a driver needs to swerve to avoid an accident or needs to move over because of a danger in the road, there isn’t much they can do if you’re sitting next to them. Some truckers refer to this area as the kill zone and it becomes a space that can be deadly to those in vehicles next to the truck. Your vehicle is much smaller than the semi and its trailer, which means it will be crushed quickly or pushed off the road if the trucker needs to make an evasive maneuver from behind the wheel.

Another hazard you face when passing a truck is the possibility of a tire blowout. The massive tires of these trucks put in a lot of miles and have a huge load on them whenever they are out on the road. Because of this, you need to make sure you aren’t next to the truck when a tire may blow. The blown tire along could exit the truck with enough force to knock your vehicle off the road and once the tire blows the driver could lose control of the truck for a short period of time, making a dangerous situation for everyone nearby.

It’s important to make sure you give these professional drivers plenty of space to do their jobs. If you do intend to pass a truck, do so as quickly as you can to avoid being stuck next to them when they lose control or lose a tire. You won’t like the results if a truck were to run into your vehicle. Next time you’re on the highway, check out the skid marks you see, these are locations where an accident likely took place that probably involved a semi-truck and a passenger vehicle; which one of the two vehicles do you think came out the best in that type of accident?