Prior to nose diving down the rabbit hole of research into them, I knew little or nothing about ambulances or medium duty trucks. I’ve always had a healthy respect for trucks on the road, much as I do for anything bigger than I am; bears, sharks, bear-sharks, etc.
Trucks are classified by weight. My truck is a class 6, which weighs between 19,001 and 26,000 lbs. As an ambulance, it weighed 19,500 lbs according to the door placard and after being decommissioned when I had it weighed on a truck scale on my trip north, it tipped the scales at a slender 17,380 lbs. I’ve removed several hundred pounds of seats, panels and other miscellaneous hardware, so I figure it’s right around 17,000 at present. I’ll of course be adding back a few thousand pounds of electrical equipment, tools, supplies, belongings, food and fresh water tanks so I’ll probably top out at around 20,000 lbs.
While my truck currently doesn’t have a trailer hitch, I have vague plans to add one, if for no other reason than just to have it if I need it. Based on the specs and depending on where the truck itself eventually weighs in, it has a towing capacity of around 42,000 lbs. In short, it’s a beast.
CDL
A few people have asked if I’m required to have a CDL (Commercial Driver’s License) to drive the truck. The short answer is I am not. In Michigan, the requirements for a CDL are determined by vehicle weight, the number of axles and amount of hazardous materials carried. As my truck only has two axles, isn’t carrying hazardous materials and is classed under 26,000 lbs, I fall under the CDL requirement threshold. Even though I’m not legally required to have a CDL, I downloaded and read the entire Michigan CDL manual last October in preparation for my trip from Florida to Michigan. I’ve also added standard safety equipment such as a reflective vest, reflective road triangles and a fire extinguisher that CDL drivers are required to carry. While my truck isn’t anywhere near as big and heavy as an eighteen wheel tractor/trailer, it’s still an enormous amount of mass to be moving around and I take the responsibility of operating it seriously. While I have excellent visibility out the front of my truck, the view behind it is severely impaired by the massive 14′ long, 8′ wide, 9’6″ tall module. As the stickers on the back of many big trucks proclaim, “If you can’t see my mirrors, I can’t see you!“, which certainly applies in the case of my truck. While I do have a backup camera, it’s not of much use for anything other than backing up. In order to see anything close to the rear of the truck, the camera has to look mostly straight down so it doesn’t provide the same view a rear view mirror would.
Trucks in General
I’d like to add a word about sharing the road with heavy trucks. Even during my brief journey of 1600 miles from Florida to Michigan I witnessed all kinds of dangerous driving by passenger vehicles. Any passenger vehicle, even a large SUV, doesn’t stand a chance against even a medium duty truck in an impact. Your average family sedan is around 4,000 lbs while a fully loaded eighteen wheeler is 80,000 lbs. Even my relatively “light” truck at 17,000 lbs is four times heavier than a sedan. The sheer physics of a potential crash between two such dissimilar vehicles should terrify everyone, truck drivers and civilians both. Unfortunately, the vast majority of private drivers don’t respect the dangers big trucks represent or how difficult they are to drive. Obviously there are reckless truck drivers as well, but I think the vast majority of them understand and appreciate the behemoths they drive.
A couple of suggestions/observations, that I have practiced long before I ever even thought of buying a big truck.
- If you can’t see the mirrors, the driver can’t see you.
- Give trucks ahead of you extra room at stop lights. They will often roll back before beginning to move forward.
- Big trucks accelerate and brake slowly, because physics. Give them room and let them merge.
- When passing a truck don’t merge back in front of them until you can see their right headlight in your rearview mirror. Driver’s of most semi tractors can’t see the ground 8-10′ in front of their bumper so while it might seem fine to you, from the truck driver’s perspective it’s like your cutting them off.
- Be nice. Truckers are underappreciated for the difficult job they do hauling the world’s goods. You like all the stuff you have; the house you live in, the food you eat and even the car you drive? Guaranteed it rode some kind of truck to get to you.
- Truckers on highways and interstates will frequently blink their headlights when another truck passes them to let that driver know that their trailer is past and it’s safe to merge. The passing driver will then flash his own tail lights as a thank you. Many trucks have a dedicated switch, called a cutout switch, on the dashboard to perform this flashing. My truck doesn’t have one but you can bet I’m scouring eBay to find one. If a truck happens to pass you, give them a friendly flash of your high-beams to let them know they are safely past you.
- You may notice a truck ahead of you turn on it’s hazard lights. This is a warning from the driver to exercise caution. They may have a problem with their truck or because of their high vantage point may see a road hazard ahead such as an accident or traffic backup. On an uphill climb it often means they will be slowing down as their heavy truck can’t maintain speed as it climbs.