Does your home jurisdiction require air brake endorsement?
Are there jurisdictions about the continent that allow people to drive air brake equipped vehicles without any type of training or license endorsement?
Forum Discussion
havasu wrote:Tom_Anderson wrote:
Are you saying this scenario couldn't happen with hydraulic brakes? People keep bringing up slack adjusters, but nobody should be adjusting their automatic slack adjusters, anyway. And if a slack adjuster fails, how is that different from a hydraulic brake self-adjuster failing (talking drums here)?
I'm not saying nobody should know how their air brake system works. I'm just wondering why "ignorance is bliss" seems to be the attitude with hydraulic brakes.
I think the issue is that hydraulic brakes are much simpler and are fitted to lighter vehicles. I am sure that there are a lot of people who are ignorant of their cars brakes and yes, accidents happen and people get killed by failed hydraulic brakes.
When you are driving 30,000# of RV you should be expected to have the same basic skills as the OTR trucker - he can recite the answers to the 9 basic questions without thinking about them as he/she is required to perform them daily.
There are many more things that can go wrong with air brakes and the consequences can be a lot worse. Fortunately they are extremely reliable but that's no excuse not to check them before every trip.
We're just going to have to disagree on this because I'm pretty sure the consequences of air brake failure and hydraulic brake failure are exactly the same, no brakes. Yes, I know about spring brakes, but they don't do much in a brake fade situation.
