Defensive Driving · Driver Training VideoRural Roads & Animal Strikes

More than half of fatal truck crashes do not happen in city traffic. They happen out here, in rural areas, often on two lane roads with no shoulder, no lighting, and nobody around. Empty does not mean safe.

Start with what the road takes away. No shoulder, or a soft one with a drop off at the edge. Gravel that moves under a loaded trailer. Blind crests, and unmarked intersections where the cross traffic never had a stop sign. If a tire drops off the pavement, do not jerk it back.

At night your real limit is your headlights. On low beams you see about two hundred fifty feet. A loaded rig at highway speed needs more room than that to stop. Your speed has to fit the light you have, not the number on the sign. High beams when nothing is oncoming.

Now the animals

Deer move at dawn and dusk, and the worst months are October through December, when they are running. Scan the ditch line and the tree edge, not just the pavement. Look for eye shine. And if you see one deer, there are more behind it.

Here is the part drivers get wrong. Do not swerve for an animal. Coming out of your lane at highway speed puts you into oncoming traffic, into the ditch, or on your side, and now the crash is yours. Brake hard and straight, both hands on the wheel, and let the truck take the hit.

If you do hit one, get off the road if you can, hazards on, and stay in the cab. A wounded animal is dangerous. Call it in to dispatch and law enforcement. Then look the truck over.

Big animals change the math

Moose, elk, and open range cattle stand high enough that the body can come over the hood and into the glass. In open range country, many states put the cost of hitting livestock on the driver, not the rancher.

Then there is farm equipment

A tractor or a combine may be doing fifteen miles an hour, and it may be wider than the lane. The orange triangle means the machine is built to run twenty five or less. At highway speed you close on it at about sixty feet every second.