I'd feel alot better if part of the driving training class that people take to get a licence had some time dedicated to teaching people about trucks and how to operate on the roads with the big rigs.
Every year there are new rules and regulation changes to the DOT handbook and the Hazmat guidelines. Truck drivers are constantly jumping through hoops trying to keep up to date. Now it takes 6 weeks to renew a CDL in Illinois due to fingerprinting and background checks. All drivers should be required to be re-educated in the rules of the road and on going training.
At the very least, we could start with those 4-6-8 hour classes people take to keep moving violations off their record. My wife was in one of those classes where the instructor open up the floor for questions on the rules of the road. She got me on the phone where I was feeding her some questionsn about how to deal with trucks on the road.
When she raised her hand and offered up a question about how to properly pass a truck and what to look for while passing to avoid danger, the instructor said that they were not there to talk about trucks but only about cars!
Huh?
I hear ya, but you know that's not going to happen. Progress is a race between the simplification of technology and the amplification of idiocy. Which side of that bet do you want?