Racing forward, pedal to the metal, a Nickle’s Bread Truck surges on.
It doesn’t matter if life and limb is at risk, all that matters is that this juggernaut attain a position at least one car length ahead of where it was.
Racing up State Route 13 South, towards Mansfield, sitting nearly on the bumper of the car in front, the truck barrels on. The poor guy, seeing the grill of the truck in his mirror, has to get over
simply to avoid the urgent delivery of baked goods. Someone, somewhere, needs a sandwich.
The date is July 5, 2013, and once again I have the feeling of having just barely escaped another tragic mishap. Drivers everywhere seem to have forgotten that the speed limits are meant for them, not just everyone else.
I will never understand the dire urgency of being one car length beyond where you were. It never fails though, be it bread trucks, SUV, or auto, there is always some jerk who feels they must be at the head of the line even if it costs them or someone else their life.
Has the expiration date on bread gotten shorter?
I drove from Miami to Washington some years ago and was surprised at just how bad American drivers are. Brazilians are also terrible. They think every road is a racetrack.
I have seen the behavior you write about many times.
However, in work situations, certain factors come into play that may help to explain what you witnessed.
If hourly employees are tasked with bread deliveries, they may be under unprecedented and severe pressure to complete tasks in as little time as possible.
The sensible and responsible commercial driving practices of yesteryear might unwisely and irresponsibly be abandoned in a desperate, self-defeating, and futile effort by employees seeking to avoid being fired in the wake of a change in management that results in the bar being raised to unrealistic heights in the pursuit of lower labor costs.
Should you investigate the bread truck angle further, I would be interested in a future column on your findings.
Although management is unlikely to advocate driving so recklessly, more likely to insist on safe driving habits, time-limits they have set for performance put the lie to that. I have heard that truckers have a set limit for the amount of hours they can spend on the road. Still I have been told by some that I know that driving for extended periods is a standard part of their job, a near necessity to meet the demands of time. As long as management sets the bar so high as far as performance, insistence on safe driving habits is clearly a CYA maneuver.