"I personally wouldn't want to drive a truck with collision avoidance stuff, not unless I had a ton of time to spend with it to understand what it does in an activated situation..."
I have no solid information about this, but I recently heard a driver complaining about some form of collision avoidance technology that had a tendency to malfunction on a loaded vehicle and was responsible for "putting trucks is the ditch".
I don't - I've been out of the industry for a while now. But, I can tell you, the vehicle dynamics of a large truck are significantly different than a car, and in many situations such an unexpected change could cause an accident.
With a car, you're only concerned about keeping one braking system in repair, when hauling a trailer you get a roll of the die every time you pick up a new trailer, some of them track straight, some of them don't - some of them brake asymmetrically side to side too.
Air Brakes are also a completely different dynamic then hydraulic brakes used in cars, in a way I can't even reasonably explain, its just something you need to experience - but to give you a clue, you don't feel brake fade as a difference in pedal back pressure, your brakes just don't work as well.
Consider this - the old adage when driving a combined tractor trailer is - "you're driving the trailer, not the truck"
I have no solid information about this, but I recently heard a driver complaining about some form of collision avoidance technology that had a tendency to malfunction on a loaded vehicle and was responsible for "putting trucks is the ditch".
Any idea what he was talking about?