Dan Jackson: For pity's sake, mind that truck

HERE'S the thing about trucks - they're big and they're heavy.

Yup, no real surprises there.

But what is surprising is the number of motorists who think trucks should behave like cars and then get irate when they don't.

As I may have said before, I tootle all over the countryside in my truck, which is about 10.5m long and exactly the maximum width of 2.5m.

It's not particularly fast and, on the scale of things, not particularly large - but it is still at least twice the size of most cars.

Now any sane person seeing such a large vehicle would, I am sure, take care around it. I mean, if you saw a vehicle that weighed eight tonnes empty and nearly 20 tonnes loaded, would you pull out in front of it from a side road with barely any room to spare? You'd be surprised how many people do just that.

Would you cut it off? Would you pass it at the end of a passing lane, or worse ... on a blind corner? Would you hug the centreline when the truck coming toward you is taking up all the available opposite lane?

Now I'm sure everyone reading this is answering "No", but some of you must be lying to yourselves because, by golly, it happens all the time.

People just seem to have a fanatical disregard for the heavy, lumbering beast I'm trying my best to control.

Just imagine the stopping distance your car has and then treble it. That's about the stopping distance my truck has.

I can't speak for the other, bigger behemoths, but mine - when it's travelling at the maximum legal speed of 90km/h and fully loaded - takes ages to come to a stop. It's all perfectly roadworthy. It's just big and heavy.

That means if you're in a car and you do something stupid in front of me, you're going to feel the full weight of 20 tonnes up your jacksie.

When I worked as a reporter for my bread and butter, part of my job was to attend car crashes and report on their cause and aftermath.

More often than I care to remember, I saw the results of a heavy vehicle versus a car. It's not pleasant ... cars do not win the argument.

I've seen them chopped in half, tarpaulins covering bodies, bits of people here and there. Not nice.

It doesn't matter if you have a large four-wheel-drive or a V8 sedan - you will lose.

Now I know not all truck drivers are saints. I'm certainly not. But all the ones I know are decent people who want to get home to their families. None of them wants the experience of pulling a small car or worse out of the grille.

Please, when you see a truck, take care around them. Remember the poor sod behind the wheel is just doing their job.

You might be having a bad day and that truck in front might be slowing you down but it is far better to be late than dead.

■Dan Jackson is a Whanganui journalist and part-time scrap metal dealer.