Safety should be your first consideration in traffic, especially if you drive every day. Bad habits can start to develop over time and may ultimately lead to you getting hurt. Sometimes, the maneuvers you perform put you at increased risk of a motor vehicle collision.
When you are close to a commercial truck, a seemingly small mistake could lead to a potentially fatal wreck. There is one maneuver in particular that people perform improperly when near commercial vehicles in traffic: Many drivers cause commercial crashes through improper merging practices.
Commercial vehicles require more space
It takes significantly longer for a commercial truck to increase or decrease its speed than it does for a standard passenger vehicle. They also aren’t capable of quickly and fully swerving into another lane the way a four-wheeled vehicle can be.
Driving safety experts recommend leaving twice the space that you usually would between yourself and a commercial truck when merging in front of them or passing them. This will give them an opportunity to slow down if necessary as you bring your vehicle up to the speed of the flow of traffic.
You should also do your best to increase your speed enough to maintain a safe distance between your vehicle and the commercial truck. Merging too closely in front of a truck and failing to aggressively accelerate when in front of a truck might mean that the commercial vehicle inevitably strikes the back of your vehicle, which could cause a catastrophic collision.
Learning about simple driving changes, like more judicious merging and passing practices, could potentially help you avoid a commercial vehicle crash.