It was in February of 1985 when I got my first 60 miles per hour truck. I had always been driving trucks that when it came time to pass another vehicle, it wasn't a problem. The harder that you pushed on the pedal, the faster you went.
With a 60 mph truck, you can "hammer down", or "put the pedal to the metal" and still only go 60 mph. When they took away our passing gear, they also removed courtesy on the highways. If I come upon a car doing 58 and I am doing 60, now it is going to make me do a lot more planning.
Do I have enough clear road ahead of me? Will this car slow down or speed up? If I am forced to sit behind this car for miles waiting for the right time to pass, now I am guilty of tailgating? If I fall back four or five truck lengths, how am I going to get the extra speed to pass? If I slow down to your speed and follow behind you at several truck lengths, you will be wondering why I don't pass?
The answer is, I can't.
One day I pulled into our yard at Wichita to get fuel. The boss had his pickup at the diesel pump, trying to fill it up. I walked up to him and he asked, "Ron, are you in a hurry"? To which I replied. "Harold, I am always in a hurry but you put me in a slow truck and no one knows it.”
He grumbled a few more words and went back to fueling his pickup.
I had just come out of road construction on I 40 in Oklahoma. There was a red car from Arkansas that had been holding up traffic. When I got a chance, I took my 64 mph truck and passed him. Just a few seconds later, he decides to go around me. He slows down as he gets to my door and has a pen and paper on the steering wheel, writing something down. He puts the paper down and takes off.
Another construction site and he slows everyone down. Once we're out of it and on the turnpike, a car starts to pass him. The faster the car went, the faster this guy went. For as far as I could see them, the two of them were side by side.
