Truck swerving through heavy traffic - GIF

[Altair]

Truck swerving through heavy traffic.




Previously:

Truck snags pedestrian overpass - GIF
Truck drops load onto oncoming traffic - GIF
Truck drives into spinning helicopter blades - GIF
Driving a truck with its cab tilted forward - GIF
Black ice causes pileup - GIF
Chain reaction highway truck crash - GIF

[jimfols]

I watched it 20 times yesterday and 8 times today, it still seems unbelievable.

[Frank S]

I watched it 20 times yesterday and 8 times today, it still seems unbelievable.

I'm trying to figure what was going on between the bus and the van there were stopping

[Nick79]

This driver is either simply amazing - - - or bat s*** crazy

[high-side]

Looks to me like he got caught off-guard by the vehicle stopped in front of him. He swerved to the lane to the left and was extremely lucky.

[Frank S]

Looks to me like he got caught off-guard by the vehicle stopped in front of him. He swerved to the lane to the left and was extremely lucky.

Caught off guard or not it is extremely difficult for a truck driver to maintain the proper following distances to allow his vehicle to stop in time to avoid a crash.
this is exasperated by the requirements of ABS in commercial vehicles. While there is no argument that antilock braking does reduce the likelihood of a jack knife when traveling on wet or icy road conditions. poorly maintained or frequent trailer swapping can cause the brakes on the trailers not to activate with as much application pressure as could be applied when this happens the tractor and trailer require much longer stopping distances than optimal.
However the biggest problem stems not from the equipment or the drive, but from being in unpredictable heavy traffic.
Back when I had my own rig on the road the one thing I hated worst than anything else was for my time schedule to force me to have to negotiate any large city during rush hour traffic. When ever possible I would try and find a place to wait it out by logging a break in my driving I could often times arrive at nearly the same time as I would have had I driven through the rush hour but possibly saving as much as 2 or in cases of driving in some places in CA as much as 3 hours driving time which meant I had more driving hours available. With the ELD system drivers are under today this is impossible the electronic log book time marches on the ability to halt the recorded data is severely limited.
Any of my friends still driving swear at the ELD system. or they are in a position to pick and chose when where and what they haul.

[NeiljohnUK]

I'm trying to figure what was going on between the bus and the van there were stopping

The JCB digger (backhoe in US?) changing lanes into the van in fronts lane, glimpsed between the van and bus as the truck straightens up.

[Nick79]

Hmmm noticed a couple of things - 1. No "Call 1-800- how am I driving" decal on back of truck . . . and 2. what was going on in front of the van the truck needed to swerve around? The white van/bus abruptly tries to avoid whatever cut across and caused the van to brake and continued to cross in front of the white van/bus.