Cross-pollination of Industry Knowledge is the Key to Innovation

Well as we have always said if you want to change the world you take something from one industry and apply it to another. History has shown this, for instance many of Leonardo DaVinci and his drawings and the Bicycle Mechanics Wright brothers. Well in that same tradition the Makers of Aircraft Jet Simulators, Lockheed are now producing a prototype Truck training simulator.

http://www.trucking.org/safetynet/drivers/dtda_seminar.html

You can buy video games simulators in trucking just like the aviation ones by Microsoft already, sometimes art really does influence reality, 3D Virtual reality that is

http://www.rochnet.net/acatalog/HardTruckII.htm

Why? Well because there are certain things you will not wish to do in a truck during training, which will help a new driver learn experiences. For instance driving off the road accidentally and then doing a gentle slow down, ride it out recovery rather than jerking the wheel and finding your self jack knifed along with 40,000 -60,000 pounds of payload. This project is a joint venture with GE.

http://www.truck.net/showdetail/rec_id/1025

Obviously you do not want to purposely blow out a front right tire in an snow storm with black ice on the road while passing a two lane narrow bridge with construction vehicles parked there over night. Which could easily happen on Pennsylvania's Toll Ways in the winter. The goal being total control, pre-planning, calm cool and collected response, not panic, which could lead to death, injury and closing of a major arterial piece of infrastructure. Of course these simulators are not cheap, but it could save more lives than the bogus newly enacted ridiculous hours of operation rules by the DOT which will actually lead to higher freight costs, more trucks on the road and therefore more in experienced new drivers, more congestion, more pollution and that means more accidents not less. Oh well, leave it to the regulators to screw up something else. Lockheed has some good ideas for the project and we stand to learn alot about human behavior, accident psychology and survivability of Murphy-ism. Combine this with a new state of awareness in transportation with regards to International Terrorism; your new drivers will be your last and permanent line of defense.

Just think if Todd Beemer would have had all the training given to the Delta Force or Navy Seal Team Six prior to the hi-jacking. Probably a different result. Also realize that with safer trucks and systems which measure tire pressure, instant weather reporting, GPS, etc, these new trucks or a new driver could possibly drive for years without a single incident and each mile with no incident makes them a little less attentive and gives them a false sense of security, when the crap hits the fan they will have never experienced anything like that and might end up upside down in the ditch and we have seen enough of those in our travels, but high winds, blow-outs, boredom, unsafe four wheelers, heavy traffic and road conditions, equipment failures can occur. And as Lockheed will tell you after testing all those X-Planes, "Events Occur" so then do them in a simulator first. I can recall my dad flew the DC-10 O'Hare Accident safely in a simulator after the controls were put into the simulator exactly as those during that fatal flight. Imagine the positive aspects of this.

"Lance Winslow" - If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs