One Must Love The 21st Century

Sorry for no post yesterday folks, but unfortunately I was deep in battle with a computer virus, well a trojan virus to be more accurate. I downloaded what I believed was a new video codec for Windows Media Player, but it turned out to be nothing more than a vicious trojan virus called "Collected.6.BC". I finally won the 6 hr battle around midnight. It was a pretty clever virus I will give it that much, but I thankfully I know my system well enough to tell when when something is running on my system processes that just don't belong there. Having a good anti-virus program doesn't hurt either as it was quick to alert me to the harmful activity and kept the virus quarantined long enough to eliminate it. Good thing too as my system backup is a bit dusty. :(

Today I allowed myself to sleep in till about 11am to help eliminate my sleep deficit. I figure if I allow myself to get a few extra hours each day then scale it back to my regular schedule I will well rested for when school starts up again. My body is definitely happy about the time off, it has been at least 3 years since I drove a vehicle with a clutch so my left leg has been getting quite a workout. Add to that a bad knee and...., well you get the idea.

This afternoon I spent getting caught up on my car cleaning that has been neglected most of the winter. While I took pretty good care of the outside, washing it to keep the road salt damage to a minimum, the interior has take quite a beating. Nothing that some good cleaning products and some elbow grease can't fix though. I had to buy some leather cleaner and conditioner however. I have seat covers over the leather seats to help protect them as much as possible but the leather still needs some old fashioned T.L.C. I wasn't able to work on that much but I did get the dash and all the plastic and trim done today, as well as get the seat covers off and into the wash. Tomorrow, weather providing, I will get the leather seats cleaned up and back to their previous luster. If the weather holds out I will go down to the local car wash and vacuum as well (as it really needs that).

Now I did promise a "recap", so to speak, of my first 3 weeks of Truck Driving School. I guess really it hasn't been as tough as I thought it might be, but definitely challenging. And if you have a large ego like I do, well expect some deep bruises in that area. I always knew that truck drivers had a tough job compared to those who drive 4 wheeled vehicles, but I never fully understood the vast extent that it truly was. I wish that everyone had to take a single drive around a parking lot in semi truck with a 48 foot trailer just to get their car drivers license, maybe then the general public on the roadways would have a little more understanding of what it takes for us to maneuver these 60 - 80 foot long vehicles around and just how large the blind spots really are.

Someone emailed me the other day and asked me if I were to give one piece of advise to the general driving public with regard to semi's, What would it be? It would be this: "Give them LOTS OF ROOM!!! And on ALL SIDES!! FRONT, BACK, and BOTH SIDES!". I don't think people realize that if you are in your car and behind a big truck and are closer than 40 feet, we can't see you at all. Scary huh? 40 feet! And even if you ignore that fact, please for the love of god, NEVER, EVER PASS A TRUCK ON THE RIGHT, EVER!!!

I can't emphasize that enough. It is pure suicide if you do! I mean that literally!

A great article, and I have added it to the side bar, for everyone to read, regarding sharing the road with 18 wheelers is here :Here. I encourage everyone to take a moment to read it and to consider the information in it. It just might save your life.

Here is an interesting statistic for you.

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), in 2002, 4,897 individuals died and 130,000 people were injured in crashes that involved a large truck. Because commercial vehicles are larger and heavier than passenger vehicles, trucking accidents typically cause much greater harm. Large trucks were only responsible for 3% of injury-causing motor vehicle accidents.

That means that 97% of all accidents that involved a large truck were caused by either passenger vehicles, or conditions beyond anyones control.

According to the NICRA, from 1994 -2003 there have been 374,509 fatal accidents that involved a DOT registered vehicle. (This includes, large delivery trucks also known as straight trucks, school and other passenger busses, as well as semi's). Out of all these, semi trucks were responsible for 4.2% of all fatalities.
(Note: that 183 deaths were caused by DOT vehicles that were moved by "acts of god" (i.e. tornado's, floods, etc)and were not the result of driver error.).

Well, that is it for me for today, lets see what tomorrow brings...