More Than ‘Semi Aware’

Con-way Truckload driver’s new book targets public with safe-driving techniques around trucks

Crossville, Tenn., resident and seven-year Con-way Truckload company driver Toby Bogard was approached in a truckstop not so long ago by a woman whose question left him at once baffled and moving toward something of an epiphany. She asked him why, if tractor-trailer rigs have 18 wheels, they weren’t able to stop more quickly than standard automobiles.

Semi Aware, by Con-way Truckload driver Toby Bogard, is available ($10.95 retail) on Amazon.com and via truck-writer.com.

“She wasn’t joking,” says Bogard, the author of a slim “Driver’s trip plan to success” in the book On the Big Road, published last year. He explained to her the basic physics involved, and “after that, I realized the full extent of the information that people who drive cars don’t know that I take for granted, because I drive a truck and I know how to drive around them. And that information needs to be passed on.”

He set about writing a second book, now out, called Semi Aware, which delivers helpful information about safe driving around big trucks. It’s primarily meant for “teens about to get their driver’s licenses before they get into the bad habits,” Bogard says, two of which you’ll be more than familiar with.

The cutoff: “One of the biggest things I see,” Bogard says, “is when people driving a car will zip around a big truck to suddenly jump in front of us because they’re going to miss their exit. If you jump in front us [it’s an obvious problem because] we can’t stop as quickly as you can.”

Tailgating: “Some people call it drafting — mathematically, you need to be within 13 feet of the rear bumper of the big truck to save any fuel whatsoever. The savings then is so minuscule that you might as well back off” for safety, as truck drivers can’t see a car that close to the back of the trailer, Bogard notes.