Hammer Down

 

Heading east on I 70 the other morning I got behind a slow poke. I waited with my turn signal flashing till there was a break in the traffic, then jumped into the hammer lane, downshifted, floored the accelerator, and went nowhere. I gained speed slowly and passed the obstruction but by that time I had a whole line of impatient, pissed off vehicles behind me. They let me know it too, as they came around me with their engines roaring and cut in way too close for their safety, forcing me to back off on the gas as I was still trying to gain speed. Get used to it people, trucks are going to piss you off more than they ever have before. It wasn't my old truck pushing 400,000 miles breaking down, you see; I was in a brand new 2011 EPA certified “smart truck” with great fuel economy, minimal emissions and no power. In classic double speak the engine is called a “Torque-max,” as in, “there's no torque, it's maxed out.”

Leave it to me to complain about getting a new truck, right? I'm not really, I'm just telling you about it in as colorful a way as I can, and the above incident is how I learned about the capabilities of my new ride. I needed a new truck. I've recently had several nightmare scenarios not due explicitly to the mechanical failure of that old truck, but certainly exacerbated thereby. Whew, I got rid of that old thing in the nick of time! And I'm all for the fuel economy and reduced emissions, believe me. I don't even want to drive a truck in the first place, but I need a job. The new truck is way welcome and besides my comfort level increasing I have much better visibility now, and the turning radius is shorter. I've survived some of our tighter customers in that old behemoth; I be cruising in style now. I thought about hanging some fuzzy dice off of the Prepass (a transponder that sits where a rear view would be if a truck had one).