Way to go, New Jersey

...He says as he rolls his eyes.

New Jersey is allowing an exception to their anti-idle law to expire May 1.

That exception allowed drivers to idle their engines when in the sleeper berth.

So now, in New Jersey, you won't be able to idle your truck for more than 3 minutes while parked. Period. No exceptions.

Good for the environment! some cheer.

Ignorant of reality and kind to the atmosphere at the expense of human safety.

If you can't afford an APU to run your air conditioning, or if yours breaks (I'd venture to guess that a majority of trucks don't have APUs yet) you'll no longer be able to legally idle your truck in order to keep the cab cool.

WE HAVE TO SLEEP, NEW JERSEY.

If we can't sleep, we don't drive safely. If we don't drive safely, you non-trucking types will start screaming about tightening the Hours of Service rules.

If this post seems incoherent, it's only because this anti-idle crap makes me so livid I can't find adequate words to express myself.

How are drivers supposed to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer without an APU or the ability to idle their engines?

Are you going to subsidize the purchase and installation of APUs, New Jersey?

No, you're not. You're just going to pass laws that effectively treat truck drivers worse than livestock.

Laws like this are born in ignorance. It's ignorance that's hard to dispel, because we who drive are out doing our jobs, and that means we can't be at home, pestering our representatives about keeping the law remotely fair for truck drivers.

If it keeps going this way, you might as well just teach me how to yoke up a team of oxen....

But then I suppose they wouldn't be allowed to defecate.

:angryfistshake:

On January 1st, 2010, the state of Illinois repealed the split speed limit for cars and trucks of 65mph/55mph respectively, and moved everybody to 65 mph. This change excepts the six county Chicago area, which is wise.

The result is that you now have hundreds of truckers (myself included) quite gleefully doing 65 throughout the state. To say gleefully is not to say unsafely, for those of you wringing your hands about the evils of fast moving trucks. I will continue to quote to anyone interested in hearing that two thirds of car/truck accidents are the fault of the car.

Anyway. This change in speed laws has produced an interesting effect...or, rather, a lack of such effect. I had been curious to see how traffic would pace itself and how things would space out and bunch up as the local population adjusted to parity with we of the freighter persuasion. As it turns out, it appears that many (if not most) cars are still champing at the bit to get around me.

This leads me to wonder if the incidence of passenger cars cited for speeding will increase this year. In order to pass me so swiftly as you are, Oh Illinoian, you need to violate your speed limit pretty flagrantly.

The law, up until now, has granted you the de facto right to pass me at 10mph of difference...but now that the law is changed, do you continue to believe it's your right?

Is your sense of progress based not on your speedometer, but on your tally of passed trucks?

I wonder.

Having driven in states with and without split speeds, I'm beginning to form a theory, and Illinois will be a fantastic testing bed for the theory.

The theory is: Passenger car drivers in states where the speed limits are split tend to see themselves as more important than trucks. Restated: When the law discriminates between truck and car speed limits, car drivers look on the trucks as "less than".

I know that it's disappointing and sometimes nerve wracking to have a semi-truck blocking your view of the road; I drive a car, too. But there is a certain aggression to the movements of cars in splitter states that belies their contempt of the truck's existence. I exaggerate slightly to make my point, but the bumper crowding and lane diving and accelerator stomping I've witnessed in California, Illinois, Michigan, and a few other notables is pretty pronounced.

So Illinois is the control. It'll be interesting to see if this trend continues. Cars very well may speed where they hadn't sped before, just to maintain their "rightful" edge on trucks.

Maybe not.