Truckers fume over town's effort to put brakes on brakes
By MARK BABINECK
Houston Chronicle
MOUNT ENTERPRISE — Some towns pair their city limits signs with others acknowledging the local Kiwanis Club, a brag about a native celebrity or a proclamation that it's the fill-in-the-blank capital of Texas.
Mount Enterprise, an East Texas crossroads community tucked in the woods north of Nacogdoches, has joined a growing list of towns across the state with a sterner greeting that's baffling to many motorists who aren't sitting on 18 wheels: NO ENGINE BRAKE.
Truck drivers know that means, once inside the city, they cannot use compression brakes — also called engine brakes or "jake brakes" because of a major brand, Jacobs Vehicle Systems. An optional complement to regular friction brakes, an engine brake abruptly displaces power, causing a throaty rumble that's amplified if the exhaust stack isn't muffled properly.
"These truck owners put on (unmuffled) straight stacks," the city's police officer, David Collins, said while running radar recently. "I guess they like to hear the racket....
Read more at the Houston Chronical
What is a "Jake Brake"?
2 comments:
well i finally got my banks exhaust brake done in my truck and and i very pleased to say the least...all i can say is wow!! no need for brakes anymore i tell you
Did plenty of long-haul trucking.
Jake brakes are only necessary on those long downgrades with a heavy load.
Using a Jake around towns where the noise can INVADE the personal property of others, namely, a home that is supposed to allow one to escape the outside world, is RUDE and shows either childisness on the Jake user's part or a lack of empathy.
I never used a Jake away from those long downgrades unless it was in a rural area with no houses around.
The extremely minimal savings on brake pads/shoes arrived at by using a Jake where you can bother people is ridiculous to use as an argument for a Jake's use.
Truckers arguing for Jakes where people can be bothered is no different from the teen-aged kid blasting their bass speakers, sending their noxious noise directly into people's homes.
What happened to civility? What's with this ME ME ME attitude with little to no concern for others?
Maybe those FORCED to listen to that unwanted outside noise shoudl adopt a ME ME ME attitude and take steps to halt that noise. I can think of a few uncivil methods.
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