Sunday, August 24, 2008

The Bee Hive State

Utah, in most cases, has pretty good roads. They are just always under construction around Salt Lake City and they can't seem to get it right.
The only place I know of outside of Utah where a driver has to travel surface streets to get from one Interstate Highway to another that intersect, is in Dallas Texas, where one travels about a block to get from I-30 E to I-35E S. In Utah I know of at least 3 places where Interstates intersect and you have to travel surface streets to get between them. In one case, one has to travel almost 9 miles on on an old US Highway to get from one Interstate to another. (Seems either the State never heard of ramps between roads or just likes to send us on the scenic routes)
Utah likes to restrict compression brakes in way too many places. Sure they make noise: but Utah seems to worry more about noise then the safety the compression brakes provide to the truck driver.(Always wondered what would make more noise: The compression brake or the scream of the 4 wheeler the truck stops on)
One last pet peeve! Utah has 3 new truck scales, two on I-15 at the UT/AZ border, and one on I-80 at the UT/WY border. On the ramp, drivers are to maintain 100' space between trucks at 20-25mph for a pre-weigh, then slow to 10mph crossing the scale. When traffic is heavy, everyone bunches up and sometimes stop because trucks can't maintain 20mph when they run into trucks doing 10mph. (Some engineer sure didn't use his brain when he dreamed up this multi-speed plan through the scales)

Keep on Truckin
The Iceman

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