Smith System

I think it's great. Especially the 'be seen' advice at 5:30.

 

It is what yoursuppose to be doing as a driver anyway.More bs for he company to place blame on drivers

 

I am a Smith Certified Trainer. IMHO I think the majority of CDL holders don't really get much out of Smith due to the fact that they already use it. They don't know that its part of the program, its not really because Smith System is really just defensive driving with some copywritten catch phrases. There are drivers who need it, but like most of the safety training and education for drivers.. they don't listen.

 

My instructor taught using the Smith system, and I took it to heart. He repeated it every day until he could tell a student "got it" and was using it...which took two days for me. It was a bit disappointing when he quit going over it with me, because I always enjoyed the little stories and explanations he'd include. At any rate, I always make a point of maintaining following distance and keeping aware of all that's going on around me. I've been in one near-accident in which a four wheeler came to a dead stop in front of me in heavy traffic coming across the bridge into Cincinnati. My eyes deceived me at first, and it took my brain a couple seconds longer to process exactly what had happened, and had I not been maintaining my following distance, I would have taken the car out. My following distance made up for my poor reaction time, and all was well.

My instructor (at that time) was about 200,000 miles from reaching his 2 million mile accident free rating. He directly credited the Smith system with getting him to that point, and I took that to heart. So far, it's worked for me.

 

100% agree.

 

I took a similar course online last fall and honestly it was a waste of time. 90% of what was in the course IMO was stuff that should be taught to 16 year olds. For someone with a CDL or someone with a couple hundred thousand kilometers of general driving experience behind them, there wasn't much useful info to be taken from it.

 

Not familiar with the Smith System. I've seen their 5 basic points and it just seems like common sense. From what I see on the roads not too many actually subscribe to the Smith System though.

My system is simple. Pay attention, look ahead, anticipate and leave lots of space.

Or to put it another way, don't put yourself in a position where you have to do anything too quickly.

 

This is so true.

Recently I had a Crete driver pass me doing 63. I'm Prime, so I am bumping up against 62, but when I have a governor bumper passing me, I typically will be courteous and drop my speed to get them past, which is what I did in this case. Crete went past, I signaled him over...he stayed in the hammer lane to pass another truck at least 800 feet ahead of me who was doing approximately 62.8mph.

Stack of trucks behind Crete kept getting longer...probably eight or ten trucks with less than 20 feet between each of them. At one point a driver in the line gets on the CB, "This is why we see these huge pileups! That one guy at the front that won't get over when he passes someone!"

Now, Crete shouldn't have been making a horse's patoot out of himself by bumping up against his top speed, but the driver on the CB was wrong. It's all the other supertruckers who think their reaction time is SO awesome that they can maintain less than half a second following distance. When the poo hits the fan at the front of the line, the whole group stacks up like an accordion.

 

Following distance is my main focus. "get the big picture, leave yourself an out". I can't stand for folks to tailgate with no following distance.
Kudos to you for letting out of the throttle. I drive a governed 65 mph truck. I usually set the cruise on 63 so the Canadians can get by. I just as well let out of it as to have another truck beside me, not to mention them holding traffic.