An Oklahoma trooper recently took to Twitter to share common sense strategies for motorists on sharing the road safely with semi trucks.
On Tuesday, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Eric Foster shared a video to Twitter after he said that he noticed “a lot of commercial vehicle crashes” that aren’t the fault of the truck driver.
“As I’m rolling around right now I see that cars are cutting in and out of traffic in between these semi-trucks that have to leave a lot more distance to be able to stop. You gotta realize that they weigh upwards of 85,000 pounds and they need more room to stop than a normal vehicle does. So, if you cut in between that gap that they leave you cut down their stopping distance. If you do that, and you have to stop very quickly, you could be involved in a serious crash,” said Foster.
Foster’s suggestion that car drivers are more often at fault for causing crashes than truck drivers is supported by a landmark ATA study from 2013 that found that “car drivers were assigned factors in 81% of crashes versus 27% of truck drivers.”
Check out Foster’s video below.
OHP Tip Tuesday: Trooper Eric Foster discusses the precautions drivers should take around semis on the highway. pic.twitter.com/cIdX4ojX9V
— OK Highway Patrol/DPS (@OHPDPS) March 9, 2021