 Breaker Breaker YouTube. This is CreativityRV here. Coming back with my second video on how lanyats and buckets of bolts can cook on the big slab and keep the shiny side up. 10-4. I've been shooting the bowl with truckers at truckersreport.com and they have great advice for us. Advice we need. We all want to have our toenails on the radiator with the black ribbon clean as a hound's tooth. But sometimes it's good to back off the hammer and watch what the convoy is doing. 10-4. Is there cabbage up ahead? Is there a Kodak with a Kodak, a Bambi, an alligator, or a meat wagon? When is it safe to pass a dragonfly? Should we flash our lights? How do we handle high wind or break down safely next to the semis on the road? Is it okay for us to slide into the rocking chair? I'm going to give you the real scoop from the truckers themselves with all the info you need to stay safe on the road in this video. Hey everybody, it's Robin with Creativity RV and welcome to episode 20 of Be a Nomad, Change Your Life, my Sunday series where I try and give you every tip and trick that you need to hit the road full time. I don't know if you guys saw the video I did last Sunday on the etiquette of staying at truck stops from the truckers themselves, but today I'm going to talk all about safety and I really have to thank the truckers at truckersreport.com. I gave them some questions and they gave me hundreds of responses with stuff I've never heard before that's going to keep us safe. So if you want to live on the road part time or full time, really watch this whole video because there is advice in here I've never heard before and it has really answered some questions that I've had when I'm driving down the road. So I hope you guys can use it too. Okay, like I said, I got tons of good info from them so I'm going to get right into it. First of all, I asked a question on truckers forum that I heard in the comment section of my Walmart video is Walmart over. There was some good discussions in the comment section there about trucks or semis because a lot of them aren't able to stay at Walmart anymore. There was one lady in that section that commented that there was a system where you flash your lights to let the truck driver know that you're going to be passing him on the right because it's easier for us to maneuver than it is for them. And first of all, I want to say I got a resounding no on this one. You'll see that if you go in and read the forum. Now there were some old timers that came on that said, yes, there was a system like this in the 70s and 80s, but that system has long passed and most of the truck drivers are new. There's high turnover and they are all trained to only pass on the left. But I will say this, there are a couple of systems with lights that we can be aware of. First of all, if a trucker goes around you and then you see him tap his brakes a couple of times, he's probably saying thank you. That doesn't mean there's a hazard in the road or he sped up to get in front of you and then decided to slow down because maybe his onboard computer said he was going too fast, which is what I always thought. Usually they're just saying thank you. The other thing is if there are people behind you and you're blocking their view and you're on a two lane highway where there's a dotted line, you can tell somebody behind you that it's safe for them to go around you if you just tap on your brakes twice so they can see the lights without slowing down and causing a hazard. So let's talk more about passing semis and semis passing us. If a semi is going to take a right turn, do not be on their left because their butt will swing out. They have a wide turn radius and if they see us back there on the left as one trucker said in the forum and they're concerned about hitting us, they could go up on the curb while they're turning right or hit a pedestrian. If you're going to pass a semi, pick your moment, pass them quickly and fully and move on. Do not stay in the lane next to them and here's why because semis can be like sales, one guy said. They can catch air especially if they're empty and you could be next to them and their back end might swing over and hit you. So because we have two big rigs maybe going down the road, we want to give them lots of room on the side and in the front and in the back. So here's a really good one. I hear a lot of our viewers saying they hate mountain passes and I do too, by the way, but because the semis seem to speed up to get past them and then they slow way down. Well, this is probably because they're what they call dragon flies like I said in my intro, which means that they're slow to go up a hill and they're fast to go down. So like one guy said to me, the biggest problem he has at all with RVs, truck stops on the road, anything is that they passed the semi going up a hill because the semi is heavy. And so they passed them and then when they get to the top of the hill, they jerk over into the right lane in front of the semi and slow down. And if they're heavy, they're slow to go up, they're fast to go down. And like that guy said, if my brakes fail, I'm going to crush you. So just know that if it seems like they're speeding up or they're slowing down, it might be because they're going up a hill, they're slow, they go down a hill, they're fast, they go into a lower gear, they control it. But that is why they're going so fast. Or if there's another big hill coming up, they're going fast down the hill so they can get up the next hill and just know that it's tough for them to drive on the mountain passes too. So just give them a lot of room to maneuver around us and to go up and down. Also, when I asked the truckers what their biggest concern was from us on the road, I got some really interesting answers that I had never thought of. First of all, they said when they're coming up to pass us, they can see us on our side mirror getting nervous and clenching the steering wheel and looking constantly in the side mirror at their front right tire if they're passing us on the left. Now, of course, like the trucker said in the trucker forum, it's because they're scared that the truck's going to come over and hit them. But what happens is because your eye is looking that way, we tend to veer over into their lane. And so that of course scares them and they're looking out for us to do that when they're passing us. And that led to my favorite discussion in the forum and that is how to handle an airway. Now, you guys might know if you're in an RV or in a car. If you're in a lane and the trucker goes past you, your car goes like this. If you're just in a car, you might feel that you're jerked to the right a little bit. So I did some research on this and asked the truckers and here's what happens. Such good information. So think about trucks going through water or your RVs going through water when you're going through the air. Imagine a boat going through the water and it's creating a wake out like that, right? So the trucker is heavier than we are when it's going past us. There are three different air pockets that hit us. So when the front of them hits us on the right hand side, we're going to hit that first wake that the air is creating and it's going to jerk us to the right. But when we're in a bigger rig like an RV or a class A, we are also going through that air as if it's water creating our own wake. So when the two of us are side by side, what happens is those wakes hit each other and then the air pockets bounce off of each other and we're smaller. So we feel more of this, right? The third air pocket happens when the back right hand side of their truck is just passing us because that's when the big part of the wake will hit us and we'll be knocked back to the right. Now, I don't like this on the road and when I see a semi coming up to pass me, I admit that I have my hands on the steering wheel and I'm ready to be jerked around. But what I didn't know is that when they do that, the Simais are scared of us because we're driving these big rigs and a lot of them said that for some of our size rigs, we should have a CDL license or have some training. I don't necessarily disagree with that if we could get that. But what they see happening is that first of all, if they're coming up to pass, we might slam on our brakes and they don't know if there's a hazard in front of us. That's the first thing. The second thing is they see us, you know, like this and our hands start to go like this and what they find happens is that people get scared when the air pocket hits them and we over correct. So what happens is then we end up veering out of our lane, we hit them, we go into a ditch, something like that because we are trying to make up with our steering wheel for the air pocket. What they said we should do is keep your eyes forward, don't look at their wheel, put your hands firmly on the wheel, but don't jerk. When the air pocket hits you, just keep your rig as steady as you can. Don't try and make up for it because you're just getting rocked like this and then it's going to stop. And I got this great piece of advice. If you want to be rocked a little bit less when the semi goes by you, one guy said, take your foot off the horsies. So here's what you want to do. When you see the truck coming up in that right side, wake is about to hit you, just take your foot off the accelerator. Again, don't slam on your brakes because that can cause a hazard behind you. So take your foot off the accelerator, you want to slow down about five miles an hour and then you drop into that wake and you get jerked a little bit more. Then when the back of their rig is about 30 feet in front of you, you can accelerate again. And it makes, I've done this since I talked to the guys on Trucker's Report and it really makes a big difference. Now when I see the truck coming up alongside me, I just take my foot off the gas, steady hold the steering wheel and when they're far up ahead, I accelerate again. It makes a big difference and it's a lot safer. So thanks, that was a great tip. The next biggest concern that I saw from the Trucker's by far was when people are pulling campers with a pickup truck, not fifth wheels, but a regular pickup truck pulling a camper. They said a few things that I think are really important for those people that have those rigs. First of all, they said that by far, these are the rigs that they see disabled over on the side of the road, mostly because people don't check their systems, the way the truckers do before they pull out. So these guys are used to hauling, they're used to having the right kind of engine for what they're hauling. So what they said is a piece of advice is first of all, make sure you have the right power of truck to pull whatever load is behind you. Make sure that your level, that you're stabilized and that your tires are properly inflated. They see a lot of people with blown tires on the side of the road that have these campers because they think they didn't check before they left. Now that brings me to kind of a scary thing that one of them said, which is, if you are disabled on the side of the road, don't just pull over to the right of the white line. If you have to and that's the only place you can go, that's fine, but don't pull right there and think that people can pass you because if you are out there working on your car and a semi goes by, it can suck you underneath inside of that airwave. Okay, now I'm going to talk about a bunch of quick tips that they gave me to tell you so you can stay safe when you're on the road. Remember, these guys have a lot of experience and a lot of training that we don't get and so they have some really good tips in here. Number one, they said, if we stop driving, you should too. If the conditions on the road are bad enough that you're seeing semis pull over, pull over. They have reports about what's coming up ahead of us that maybe we don't have or some weather reports that we don't have. Number two, they said, of course, watch the weather advisories and the wind advisories. In fact, one guy said that we should not be driving down I-80 in Wyoming unless we have five years of experience in our RV and I went, when he said that because I did that road about five times my first year and it is no joke. It is freaking scary. So along that line, what should we do if it's really windy? They said go slow but don't stop. If you need to pull down below 45, you should be putting your hazards on and go slow. Don't let anybody rush you and don't just pull over on the side of the road because the wind is high. Keep moving or you can be blown over. Go slow until you are next to an overpass where you can park next to it or under a bridge or something that's going to give you some barrier from the wind before you stop. Here's the next tip. If there's more than five people going behind you on a two-lane road, you can pull over to let them pass but only do it on a flat paved area. Don't let the people that are behind you right in your butt pressure you to the point that you pull over on a soft shoulder or an uneven surface because you can cause an accident that way. You can have a blown tire and it really hurts everybody behind you. Wait until you have a flat surface where you can pull over safely. The next thing is to keep your head moving which I thought you know me keep your head moving but what my understanding of that is if a truck pulls up alongside you remember they don't want to stay next to you on a road for a long period of time because one of us could veer right? So if in your peripheral vision you see that the truck is next to you turn and look at him because he's going to tell you if you have a compartment open or a loose hose or something like that. This is what they do for each other and they're happy to do it for us and conversely because we don't have cbs and they asked us to do the same thing for them. If we see that they have something going on with their rig grab a piece of paper if you can and write out something really simple pull up alongside them and just put it up in your window. It should be something like loose strap or check lights. The next tip is don't ever use your high beams or flash your high beams especially at night because this can cause temporary blindness in them. Their side mirrors are no joke so when we flash them it can go right in their eye sometimes and that can be really dangerous and also they said that's another peeve if you've got a truck pulling a camper make sure that you're level because if you're not and your back end is going down your headlights your regular headlights at night can be going right up into their side mirrors and that creates a dangerous situation for all of us. And if you can't see what's coming up behind you totally they said get the trucker mirror extensions and then you can fold them back in when you hit your spot. You may have gone down the road and seen a whole convoy of trucks and they have the best names for the first truck and the last truck and everything but you might want to know if you can slide over between the trucks if there's a truck in front of you and a truck behind you do the truckers think that's okay they do if you keep your distance. One guy said if you want to be in the herd that's okay but anything can happen in the herd so give yourself lots of distance. Now I couldn't get an exact number and you know this is subjective so we're all going to have a different idea of what a good distance is. So just remember in a car you have to give yourself one car length of distance for every 10 miles an hour you're going so if you're going 60 there should be six car lengths between you and the car in front of you. It's so much more with RVs and semis and one of their biggest fears is when somebody's riding their bumper because you never know what's going to happen up ahead. It's common for someone to blow a tire or for there to be an accident or an emergency vehicle and so you want to give yourself lots of distance to stop behind the guy in front of you and also between you and the guy behind you and then they're fine if you sit in the rocking chair which means you're in between the trucks and I understand that you can catch a draft there because remember that air wake where you're behind another truck and so you get better gas mileage. So thanks guys for telling us we can go in there if we leave you a lot of room. So thanks again to the truckers at truckerreport.com the link to that is below along with the link to last week's video where the truckers themselves tell us what we need to know to stay at truck stops so everybody can get a good night's sleep and we can all get back on the road safely. I'm down out and on the side so come back and leave your comments below. Please tell the truckers thank you or give me your opinion. Truckers if I missed anything or you have other advice or other advice for the truck stop video do please leave them in the comments below. We appreciate you and I appreciate everybody watching. If this was helpful please share it with your friends. Good advice in here. Give me a thumbs up on the way out if you haven't subscribed already please consider doing so. Everybody have happy travels out there and be free.