Indian drivers smoking the brakes
Posted by Intelligent-Site7686@reddit | Truckers | View on Reddit | 55 comments
In California whenever I see a truck smoking the brakes, or on the side of the road with a brake barbecue cloud, it's Indian dudes. Why don't they use the engine brake? I don't mean this with any disrespect, I'm genuinely curious.
PuzzleheadedLaw5997@reddit
they dont receive proper training and the west coast states give them a CDL that they didnt actually earn...something needs to be done about giving illegals a license to drive the biggest vehicles on the road but none of the loser governors or state legislators in these states will do what needs to be done.
Nonabortedbaby1@reddit
They have no idea what the fuck they’re doing
Violet_Apathy@reddit
The concentration of Indian drivers is high in California. I'm guessing because they're more willing to team and produce loads often need teams. But California definitely is brake smoking capital of country. I'll be cruising down without hitting my brakes at all and see all the brake smokers zoom by
CannibalAnus@reddit
Cali is also a leading state to issues non domicle CDLs for people.
DukeBradford2@reddit
I used to run i-5 corridor and the amount of Indian dudes was insane. Yreka truck stop has an Indian restaurant and about half a dozen would block all the pumps for an hour or two and anytime the employees asked if that was their trucks they said no. This is not a once or twice thing, it’s every single time gor hours on end other drivers can’t fuel. They throw the water bottles in the toilet, nastiest bathroom i have ever seen. Great food, but god damn they are rude, nasty and shit at driving down hills
yano324@reddit
When did so many Indians drivers start showing up in California? I remember being a kid & riding in my dads cab over in the early 2000s & I don’t remember it being like this
NegativeAd3810@reddit
Definitely a lack of training. I smoked my breaks on I70 through the passes in Colorado. No one ever taught me how to properly use the engine brakes.
Murkdonalds@reddit
Good grief!!! Truckers has turned into “Look at what these dumb minorities have done today to ruin our industry”. Everything y’all claim to see Indians, Mexicans, Africans, etc do, I’ve seen a white person do. Mind your business and think about something productive.
Codexe-@reddit
Why are they all so racist
Bamboopro@reddit
It's not racist to notice patterns.
viertes@reddit
Had a truck briefly catch fire on I-10 Louisiana last month because of this.
Couldn't see exactly who it was but there's only a few people that get out of their trucks with a turban, shorts, and sandals.
Mount hope scares the shit out of me when I see them blast past at 90mph... like bro, how the fuck are you gonna stop? 40 is fast downhill on that mountain. Happened twice, now I route all the fuckin way around. Both Indian dudes with their bead mats in their windshield.
Then there was a guy in Florida who turned out to just be some white dude that had a pile up in front of him happen coming off of the interstate, slammed his brakes and went into the grass. Didn't even catch fire but the extinguisher was already spraying as a preventive.
Then JBhunt black guy who honestly just got unlucky when a car cut him off going down an 8% in (north? Don't remember exactly) Carolina to make his exit, pulled over smokey but no damage.
You cannot convince me this isn't a combination of intelligence to education. They drive substantially different in India, Then come over here, laughably pass some backwater "CDL today!" Course just so they can come over and cause problems.
Before I was a driver, I made drill bits for downhole drilling and when I got sent over to china/India to train people. You cannot imagine the corners these people cut on the regular. You get 1 quality worker out of every 60-65 you interview for SIMPLE tasks.
It's the people, DOT is trying to force people to learn, that think they absolutely know better.
Same fucks that go into the powder drying area to fart because they did it one time and the project was successful, so now they fart on every. Single. Batch. Thinking they're magic? I've never understood such incredible logic.
But 3 of the 5 cases of burnt brakes in the last 6 months of me driving has all been Indian men. That's not a good look, and those are just the ones I've witnessed.
pingus3233@reddit
Yeah what though?
viertes@reddit
Without breaking agreements that are legally binding, there are certain downhole drilling companies that have a powder like substance used in percussive maintenance to smoosh hard block into even harder block then be put on a giant bore bit and thrown down a hole going mach Jesus.
Unfortunately the main guy in charge of drying said powder decided to make it a point, after one of the first successful batches, that worked. Because he farted in the room.... to then fart on every batch, because he thought it was modifying the drying factor. The longer I questioned him. The longer I questioned my own sanity and really just came to the conclusion that 1. People like that fucking exist somehow, and 2 theres no hope for us as a species... he still works there, I do not. Couldn't take the companies infighting and petty squabbles, turned me off from humanity after awhile, now im slowly coming back but GD if I don't think about him from time to time...
ATinyChaosGoblin@reddit
I dont know how to process this brand of crazy. He believed he had lucky farts or integral to the drying process farts? Both are just so damn weird.
viertes@reddit
Crazy enough for the memory to stick around for 11 years
icsh33ple@reddit
They don’t even know how to use the bathroom, and you expect them to properly handle an 80,000lb vehicle?
theboywthagreenscarf@reddit
Huh, I drive a lot in cali. Getting ready to head over there now and never see anyone smoking their brakes. Matter of fact, I cross the Rockies regularly and don’t catch truckers smoking brakes. Guess I’m just lucky but I know, with time, I’ll end up seeing it lol
Intelligent-Site7686@reddit (OP)
I see it on 80 Donner Pass area, 58 on the way to the 99, sometimes on the bottom of Cajon
Codexe-@reddit
That explains why I never see it, I always try to avoid those routes.
Exact-Leadership-521@reddit
Sign said turn them off for noise. I leave mine on straight piped just so the new guys feel confident to use their silent jakes
ATinyChaosGoblin@reddit
This makes me happy for so many reasons.
Little-Trucker@reddit
💪
senorjigglez@reddit
I work for a company hauling milk and often see evidence of overheated brakes on the trucks I get into. Cracked brake discs and melted wheel nut markers usually. All our trucks have exhaust brakes and most of our drivers are home grown. I think it's just lack of training tbh, the older drivers got used to driving trucks with no exhaust brake or one that was basically useless and the newer ones drive them like they would their car.
Ambitious-Lunch3242@reddit
Everytime I go thro the grapevine in California there’s always a truck smoking their brakes apparently engine brakes aren’t a thing anymore
Impressive-Menu8966@reddit
I was never taught. I came home one day and googled the switch and learned how to drive so much smoother and safer.
Jacktheforkie@reddit
I use almost exclusively Engine braking, though at 20mph it works much better for me than the mechanical ones, my DAF likes to disengage the engine when I brake to a stop and it’s really jolty
mywriting247@reddit
Lack of training
CannibalAnus@reddit
Pretty much, happens to a lot of new drivers too. Same with the concept of not being at the ‘safe speeds’ to get down either so burning the brakes just comes with it.
Exact-Leadership-521@reddit
There's 1400 new CDL drivers a day pouring into the roads. The fact you see 1 here and there on fire is pretty good.
I smoked brakes twice. The first time it was a long steep hill with signs and I just didn't slow down at the top. Another time was a few years later after I'd gone down a hill a few times in maybe 3-4th gear and wanted to try 7th. It's a 4th gear hill
Jacktheforkie@reddit
I smoked mine once, 20% hill with a fully loaded 7.5t DAF, what a stench that was
death-eater69@reddit
Not a race thing either. I moved from Florida to a hilly town surrounded by hilly country and was never taught stuff like that. I knew vaguely that jake braking reduced wear on brake pads but the trucks we used in Tampa were natural gas so I had zero experience with it. Was only trained on those trucks. I never had my brakes smoking but it took me a few weeks to realize hey I should be using my Jake shouldn’t I
shadowmib@reddit
Yep, followed a driver from my own company down some mountain (wasnt monteagle but similar) with a mandatory brake station at the bottom too.
By the time we got there, his brakes were smoking. He was a white dude, just no one told him how to use the jakes. I took 5 minutes to tell him how the control worked. He was going to have to sit there a while for the brakes to cool. Mine were fine
duhrun@reddit
Go watch Indian driving videos from where they are from, explains everything.
fusillijhericurl@reddit
Do they not teach stab braking anymore in truck school?
18WheelerHustle@reddit
my school never taught stab breaking they only taught us how to pass the state test - stab breaking was learned in real life
BONERFLEX_@reddit
The school I went to 7 years ago didn't teach us shit. Just a few backing maneuvers. And even that was half assed. We had too many students in the class. Barely got any time behind the wheel. I remember one guy that was in the 2 month course for 8 months lmfao. I learned everything from actually being on the road through experience and asking questions on Google or YouTube.
whattaUwant@reddit
Why not just downshift instead of using the engine brake?
AndromedanPrince@reddit
its easier in an auto to just use hill assist engine brake
whattaUwant@reddit
I forgot about all the fake trucks that exist 😃
Intelligent-Site7686@reddit (OP)
The super truckers do have a point about control with a manual transmission over autos
Bbqandjams75@reddit
I remember going down that mountain in the Poconos… and a guy engine was cooked I think he used engine brakes too much.. will a company fire you for that?
Intelligent-Site7686@reddit (OP)
If you're going too fast with engine brake on fully the RPMs are too high... if that's happening you can let off engine brake, stab break down to lower speed, auto transmission will go to lower gear, then you can hit the engine brake again. Also the right switch on freightliner can do manual gear shifting so you can control speed that way but for me it's too much trouble
WillieDripps@reddit
I find it really annoying that the DOT will always count these incidents against truck drivers but will never post the demographics of the people causong the problems
Cardinal_350@reddit
Obama saw to that. That's why federal crime statistics don't show race demographics anymore.
chico-dust@reddit
My guess would be they have no experience with steep downgrades and very little with tractors in general so they either don't know what a Jake is or don't know how to utilize one.
stevenmacarthur@reddit
Because the (likely) White guy at the fly-by-night "Driving School" didn't train him; he was too busy taking a bribe.
TheRealMrSpeedBump@reddit
I have seen it the odd time in Cali, but the most recent and "shits getting real!" moment I've had with an Indian driver going downhill while putting out the smoke was on I-84, going westbound downhill through Deadman Pass. This was about a month ago.
I was taking my time, going about 55 downhill with the jakes along with another rig a good bit ahead of me when this fucker came flying past me just before the turnout for the lookout point. He came up on the curve wicked hot and immediately began smoking his breaks hard, clouds coming out of them. He didn’t lose it, thankfully, but he was clearly riding the lightning all the way down as he never stopped smoking. He ignored the runaway lane, only coming off the brakes and letting up on the smoke once we reached the straightaway before the bottom of the hill. I'm not entirely sure what he speed was coming out of it, but he was quickly becoming a speck, so he had to have been doing over 80 before the road leveled out.
I caught up to him a bit further to the west while going uphill (I was empty) and his truck was still letting out that unmistakable stink of roasted brake.
grimnir_music@reddit
Spent a good 8 years doing that hill several times a week. From my experience you have about a 50/50 chance to see someone melting their brakes each time you go down. They always want to start the hill at 55+ then they reach the switchback part and overheat coming down to 35mph.
Savagemocha@reddit
If people used their eyes this wouldn’t be a problem
Glittering_Map5003@reddit
CA handing out cdls like candy. Flip flops and we don’t stop
Milk_MAN1963@reddit
Every so many years there is a group of drivers that everyone thinks is shitty drivers. When I started driving it was JB Hunt
TotalR3callXL11@reddit
Ahh, the infamous flip flop dots.
justdan76@reddit
That’s the quality of drivers we get now, regardless of ethnic background. We have a new hire at my shop who doesn’t even have a regular CDL, it’s stamped with some temporary authorization. Couldn’t leave the lot without running over the curbs. They put him in the warehouse thankfully. My point is, this did in fact happen, whatever your political views are, a bunch of unqualified people were given CDL’s and work visas without having to actually learn how to drive a truck, and went to work for shady carriers who don’t do training and don’t pay real wages.
Contact your representatives!
Ok-Initiative-8809@reddit
Durka durka
Responsible_CDN_Duck@reddit
Confirmation bias.
You see what you expect to see.