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Blog > Out of a job ….?
Author: Brian Weatherley
I think I’m becoming redundant…as well as wondering what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years.
Let me explain. During the last two decades as a trucking journalist I’ve regularly road-tested 44-tonne artics, honing my fuel-economy driving skills along the way. The truck manufacturers expect anyone testing their products to not only drive well, and safely, but economically too. Hardly surprising when truck fuel economy can be a major ‘deal-breaker’ when an operator is thinking of buying a new truck. So no-one wants a bad road-test result and any journo testing a heavy truck is expected to be on top-of-their game in terms using the truck’s free kinetic-energy to do all the work, reading the road ahead to minimise fuel-sapping gear-changes, and easing-off the throttle at the crest of a hill so your momentum carries you and your 44-tonner over the top without wasting diesel. If that sounds OTT remember the difference between ‘winning’ and ‘losing’ in a truck road test can be as little as ½ a litre of derv…
Ever since I passed my HGV I’ve had that economy message drummed into me by the various manufacturers’ demo-drivers, men who certainly weren’t shy at letting journalists know what they thought of their ‘road-craft’…So I knuckled down, paid attention to what they had to say and approached every test as if my life depended on it. I needn’t have bothered. Today automatic transmissions have taken away all the worry of gear-changing. Real-time driver monitoring systems dish-out stars for good performance. And thanks to 3-D GPS mapping systems I’ll never need to anticipate a hill again. For with ‘predictive cruise control’ a truck can now ‘see’ the hill up-ahead. Its on-board computer tells it to speed up (so you need fewer down-shifts) before easing off the gas as the crest of hill approaches. Down the other side it knows to dial in the retarder and exhaust brake before switching over to ‘Eco-Roll’ when you’re back on the flat—all saving precious fuel.
So where does that leave me and my 25 years of eco-driving experience? Steering and braking as far as I can see---and watching out for all those idiots on the road, as far as I can tell. But as there seem to be a lot more idiots about than there were 25 years ago that’s probably not such a bad idea. Let’s call it progress….
18th Jul 12
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