Preventative maintainence on BUTT has me home today...and probably then some.
Any day I don't have to work, is a day I don't have to work.
On a much less brighter note, I found one of our mechanics with a throttle programming unit connected to the BUTT this morning. The sad result will be that, in future, top speed will now be a paltry 62mph. That's right. While the company thinks they save money on fuel costs,
I have become a traffic obsruction.
A trip I used to run in 4 hours (one way) will very likely now take nearly 5. 8 hours, out and back, now will encroach upon 10. SHIT!
I'm not a speeder. I'm 80,000lbs, 75ft long and in your way. As long as I could have the ability to take a boost in acceleration, I could get out and away from merging traffic. This will no longer be the case. When the character "Oddball' from the movie,
Kelly's Heroes, was describing his tank's service about how they had been souped-up, he mentioned that their great speed was forward or backward because, "We like to get out of trouble just as fast as we get into it." Now, for me, the only option I'll have is to brake and lose any momentum I may have built up, and that takes so much time and distance to replace.
The company doesn't care. They only look at the cost factor, and not very accurately. This program of engine speed reduction began a couple of years ago. I don't have access to all the data since, but I can say with confidence, that with all probability, a high number of accidents could be blamed on drivers not being accustomed to no power boost available when they thought they might have it. What is the cost of that? Extra time on the job behind that steering wheel, when there was a time that the driver could run a particular trip in a certain time frame and be able to get back to his family, spending the night at his own home, he now costs the company extra for a motel stay.
It's all so unneccessary.