Here are some random facts from TheTruckersReport.com:
The average 18 wheeler holds 200 gallons of diesel fuel.
This shouldn’t matter to you. It didn’t matter to me until 7:30 PM yesterday.
Jack-knife: when a semi trailer skids faster than the truck cab, passing it, causing the rig to fold in half. This can happen on icy or wet roads or when the trailer is empty and the driver has to brake very hard.
The result is total loss of control, both for the truck driver and for me.
The length of time to stop an eighteen wheeler is 40% greater than that of an automobile, depending on the weight of their load, whether they are bobtailing, road conditions, and other factors.
This fact is apparently a law of physics and has no relationship to my personal needs or goals.
The legal weight for an eighteen wheeler is 80,000 lbs. [40 tons].[ 36287 kg Canadian] That is without any oversize or overweight permits.
This means moving one after a jack-knife requires another truck of the same size. Sometimes two. This time, three. Except when . . .
The average 18 wheeler holds 200 gallons of diesel fuel.
. . . 200 gallons of diesel oil slowly leaks from both perforated fuel tanks and pours across five lanes of Atlanta 285. This requires more technical help. And, apparently, a lot of walking around and talking in groups.
The average Atlanta Police cruiser has 5673 flashing lights.
Okay, that’s just my estimate. It may be more.
A photosensitive seizure is defined as a seizure produced by flashing lights or certain visual patterns ~ epilepsy.com
My wife, Suzie, has epilepsy due to brain surgery.
White light flashes are usually brightest, but some people are particularly susceptible to red light flashes or alternation between red and blue flashes. Such red and blue flashes in the so-called “rocket launch sequence” of a Pokémon cartoon in 1997 sent about 700 Japanese schoolchildren to the hospital with immediate seizures ~ epilepsy.com
The lights were all white, red and blue.
The light must be bright and close enough to fill a large part, at least 25%, of the person’s visual space. ~ epilepsy.com
We had a front row seat. Several miles of 5-lane, stand-still, Atlanta traffic composed mostly of cars full of people with cell phones attracts a lot of emergency vehicles. I was afraid I would have a seizure.
Vertical moving stripes, or moving dots may bring on a seizure. This can happen with light coming through window blinds ~ epilepsy.com
Suzie once ended up in the ER because of lights flashing between the blades of ceiling fans at a steak house. After one seizure, heart arrythmia put her in intensive care for most of a week. Keeping her medicine adjusted is tricky.
Take breaks from game-playing, with no more than one hour straight playing at a time. Play in a well-lighted room so the contrast of the videogame with background lighting is not too high.~ epilepsy.com
There was a wall of lights in front of us from median to shoulder. I couldn’t figure out how to adjust the contrast on night. Crowds of people wandered the highway causing the previously polite police officers to get assertive to control them.
Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter.” – Albert Einstein
Einstein must have once sat in an Atlanta traffic jam.
I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. ~ Mark Twain
After two hours, three wreckers, a fire truck, two ambulances, road hazard trucks, more than half a dozen police vehicles, five lanes brought to a stand still and crowds wandering in the pouring rain, the police cruisers pulled away leaving people scrambling back to their cars. We drove away through cleaning foam residue. The accident was not reported in Atlanta news media.
Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus ~ Romans 15:5
There is no sight on earth more welcome than a grubby gas station bathroom after a two hour emergency that never was.
