[aprssig] [OT] RE: APRS experiment along I-40, mapping vs. voice alert vs. local info

[Dave Baxter]

Alex, Wow!..

I'm amazed you took a truck for that journey that by the sounds of
things was not even roadworthy!   Hire or otherwise, surely it should be
fit and safe for use.

If that was me, I'd have taken one of the hire people for a short jaunt
round the block, on the grounds that if all OK, I'd take it.  If not,
they'd experience the same problems.

Heck, here in the past, I've done that, and *Made* them put a decent
(ie, legal) set of tyres on the truck I was going to drive.

Guess you had no choice of hire company or vehicle.  Seriously, if you
had to swerve to miss some errant drunk, hit a bump and lost control of
the thing, hit, injured (or worse) someone else, who's fault, and who
gets the sharp end of the lawyers? 

>From the sounds of things, having all the emergency comm's kit
available, invoked Murphys Law, and you didn't need to use it in anger.

Hope you gave the hire co drop off place a few choice words, or got some
money back.

Here (UK) regardless of who owns the vehicle, if Mr Plod stops you (for
whatever reason) and takes an interest, you as the driver cop it.  No
one else (in the first instance at least.)  Unless they somehow admit to
letting you drive an unfit vehicle when asked, after they've bagged and
binned your remains..

I've been relatively lucky with hire cars in the US.  Having an (OK,
very out of date) CA licence, gets me a better rate than the usual
tourists do, even hiring on the East coast..   But I still on ocasions
have to reject a car because something is obviously wrong with it.  The
last one (4 years back now) had no working indicators, and that was up
for hire!   (From a German sounding co, next to Philli international.)
At least there was no argument, they just checked over a car just back
in, and gave me that one.    Colegues at work though, have had hire cars
and van's in the US, that conk out on the highway with no warning, and
on one ocasion the instrument pannel went up in flames while they were
driving!   On each ocasion, money back (and for one of the breakdowns,
expenses) was successfully invoked.

Take care.

73.

Dave G0WBX.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alex Carver
> 
<SNIP>
> I was 
> making the entire drive solo in a large rental truck.  For 
> anyone unfamiliar with US rental trucks, regular drivers 
> (non-commercial drivers) can rent a large box truck under 
> 27,000 pounds for personal purposes (like moving belongings 
> which is what I was doing).  Unfortunately, because the 
> trucks are driven by non-commercial drivers, they tend to be 
> sorely abused to the point of being dangerous so my family 
> wanted to keep watch in case I got into trouble.
> 
.
.
.
> This truck had broken suspension so I 
> was constantly having to look for bumps and holes in the 
> roads to avoid flipping the truck.
</SNIP>