THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994 TAG: 9406210336
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B8 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: 940621 LENGTH: Medium
That's particularly true on Interstate 95, nicknamed the Citrus Highway.
{REST} Overall traffic on main highways increases up to 10 percent and probably 20 percent to 25 percent near the coast, according to state surveys.
Car drivers say big trucks throw their weight around, tailgate smaller vehicles and frustrate, even frighten, auto drivers by lumbering uphill at 55 mph and careening downhill at 75 mph.
Truck drivers say drivers of cars - four-wheelers, in their lingo - neglect basic safety rules, such as using turn signals, and have no idea what it's like to drive a 20-ton vehicle that's 70 feet long.
``The average four-wheeler doesn't know enough about the trucks to stay out of your way,'' John Martini, a truck driver with 32 years' experience told The News & Observer of Raleigh.
Some don't know, for example, that at 55 mph it takes a tractor-trailer nearly the length of a football field to stop. Or that they're not supposed to pull in front of another vehicle until they can see it in their rearview mirror.
Martini, who was taking a break just off I-95 near Micro in Johnston County, admitted that some truckers do dangerous things, too - such as tailgating.
``We have too many young cowboys out here who think they are truck drivers,'' he said.
Herbert Soltmann, who was driving his Lincoln Continental to Bricktown, N.J., on I-95, complained about truck drivers who tailgate him.
``When you're doing 65,'' he said during a lunch stop, ``you don't want nobody on your back.''
Soltmann thinks truck drivers are getting worse.
``Thirty years ago, they were courteous,'' he said. ``Now they just pull onto the road, whether you're there or not. You have to change lanes or stop.''
Last year, 159 people were killed and 3,722 injured in more than 7,000 car-truck accidents across North Carolina, the state traffic engineering division reported.
Around the country, car-truck crashes are responsible for 4,500 deaths and 145,000 injuries every year, according to the U.S. Transportation Department.
To reduce this toll, the U.S. Transportation Department is urging auto drivers to avoid the large blind spots behind and on both sides of truck drivers' rigs. The department says a truck driver can't see a car directly behind him for nearly 150 feet.
Statistics show tractor-trailers are involved in a higher rate of fatal crashes than cars, but the transportation department also says trucks have reduced their accident rates and total fatality rates significantly in the past 15 years.
William Watkins Jr., a truck driver from Lindenwold, N.J., said truckers have to drive defensively, compensating for the errors of auto drivers and other truckers.
He remembered a close call several years ago on Interstate 10 in Louisiana. A motorist in the left lane decided, too late, she wanted to exit. She stopped in the left lane.
``I was behind her,'' Watkins recalled. ``I locked the brakes, and the trailer - it was a double trailer - started to jackknife. I got lucky: I released the brakes, and the rig righted itself.''
{KEYWORDS} TRAFFIC by CNB