Truck Driver Health: Symptons of a Heart Attack

avrek.com

Story thanks to cdllife.com. Links provided:

In the past week, there have been a handful of headlines about truck accidents as a result of a heart attack. Drivers, you need to be aware of the symptoms and the things you can do to head-off a heart attack and how to prevent one altogether. Also, learn how to distinguish between a possible heart attack and heartburn.

Men’s Symptoms of a Heart Attack:

All men should be familiar with these heart attack symptoms:

• Chest pain or discomfort that can feel like uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the chest. It may last for more than a few minutes, or it can come and go.
• Discomfort or pain in other areas, such as one or both arms, the neck, jaw, back or stomach
• Shortness of breath, lightheadedness, nausea, or sweating
• Abdominal discomfort that may feel like indigestion

Chest pain is a classic male heart attack symptom, and men know it well. But they’re often clueless about other symptoms, experts say.

Women’s Symptoms of a Heart Attack:

These chest-related heart attack signs often appear in men, and many women get them, too:

• Pressure, fullness or a squeezing pain in the center of the chest, which may spread to the neck, shoulder or jaw;
• Chest discomfort with lightheadedness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath;

But many women don’t have chest pain.

In the Circulation study, common female heart attack symptoms include:

• shortness of breath (57.9%)
• weakness (54.8%)
• unusual fatigue (42.9%)

Women also had these symptoms:

• Nausea
• Dizziness
• Lower chest discomfort
• Upper abdominal pressure or discomfort that may feel like indigestion
• Back pain

What to do if You Think You’re Having a Heart Attack:

Calling 911 is best, too, because emergency medical personnel can start treatment, such as oxygen, heart medications, and pain relievers, as soon as they arrive. They can also alert the hospital to begin preparations for tests and treatments.

While you’re waiting for an ambulance, here are other ways to help yourself or someone else having heart attack symptoms:

• The patient should chew and swallow an aspirin, if there is one on hand.
• Patient should stop all activity, lie still and try to remain calm.

Heartburn or Heart Attack?

Signs more typical of heartburn include:

• A sharp, burning sensation just below the breastbone or ribs.
• Pain generally does not radiate to the shoulders, neck, or arms, but it can.
• Pain usually comes after meals, when lying on the back, when exercising or when experiencing anxiety.
• Symptoms usually respond quickly to antacids.
• Rarely accompanied by a cold sweat.

Signs more typical of angina (severe pain in chest area) or heart attack include:

• A feeling of fullness, tightness, or dull pressure or pain generally in the center of the chest.
• The feeling of a belt being tightened around your chest
• Sudden chest pain or pressure that worsens
• Dizziness
• Pain may spread to the shoulders, neck, jaw or arms
• Pain often responds quickly to nitroglycerin
• Shortness of breath
• Often accompanied by a cold sweat
• Possible lightheadedness

If you have any pain that lasts for more than a few minutes or any warning signs of a heart attack, seek immediate medical attention. If there’s any confusion about whether your symptoms are heartburn or a heart attack, also seek immediate medical attention.

Many people have different acid reflux-related heartburn triggers, but most people have similar heartburn symptoms.

• A burning feeling in the chest just behind the breastbone that occurs after eating and lasts a few minutes to several hours.
• Chest pain, especially after bending over, lying down, or eating.
• Burning in the throat — or hot, sour, acidic or salty-tasting fluid at the back of the throat.
• Difficulty swallowing.
• Feeling of food “sticking” in the middle of the chest or throat.
• Heartburn may cause chronic cough, sore throat, or chronic hoarseness.

*Information taken from WebMD.

How to Help Prevent a Heart Attack

1. Quitting smoking.

2. Eating healthy. Avoid fatty foods, excess salt, and red meats.

3. Controlling high blood pressure and diabetes.

4. Ensuring regular exercise at least 30 minutes a day. Walking is most beneficial.

5. Preventing obesity. Doing all you can to maintain weight.

6. Choosing to live a healthy lifestyle.

7. Practicing meditation.

8. Doing regular relaxation and breathing exercises.

9. Undergoing periodic cardiac evaluations.

10. Including foods that are rich in anti-oxidants in your diet.

*Information taken from HealthyGuidance.org.

http://cdllife.com/2012/health/truck-driver-health-symptoms-of-a-heart-attack/

McCarthy and Rodgers - Creating the New Joe Cool

legionreport.com

How Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy have blended new-school tactics with Montana-era West Coast offense principles to bring the Packers to the brink

Very interesting piece thanks to Chris B. Brown and grantland.com. Linls provided:



Jan. 7, 2015

When Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy began his first NFL job in 1993, as a Kansas City Chiefs offensive assistant working with quarterbacks, he immediately inherited a rather tricky assignment: coaching Joe Montana.

McCarthy had gone to K.C. to work with his mentor Paul Hackett, the Chiefs’ new offensive coordinator and a former assistant for Bill Walsh’s San Francisco 49ers. While working together at the University of Pittsburgh, Hackett and McCarthy had installed a version of Walsh’s legendary West Coast offense, which had powered four Super Bowl titles in the 1980s. McCarthy became enamored of the system during those years with the Panthers, immersing himself in the offense that was taking over football. By the time he went to the Chiefs, McCarthy felt he was ready for any challenge.

Well, almost any challenge: Prior to the 1993 season, the Chiefs traded for Montana, the veteran quarterback with extensive West Coast offense experience and four Super Bowl titles, and the man Jerry Rice referred to as “God.” McCarthy told Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel that the gravity of the assignment didn’t register until he excitedly let some of his close friends know that he’d be coaching Montana, and one responded by asking, “What in the [expletive] are you going to teach Joe Montana?” It was a good question, and it led McCarthy to become as much Montana’s student as his teacher, soaking in all the knowledge he could from the future Hall of Famer.

More than 20 years later, on the brink of a divisional-round playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys, McCarthy again finds himself in a teacher-student partnership with an elite pupil: Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Though McCarthy is facing a similar challenge of figuring out how to help one of the game’s best quarterbacks get even better, his relationship with Rodgers is far more collaborative than his pairing with Montana ever was, allowing coach and quarterback to try to improve themselves, each other, and the very offense Walsh taught Montana so long ago.

At some point, the story of every great quarterback morphs from anecdote to myth, and Rodgers’s narrative fits the mold. Barely recruited out of high school, Rodgers wound up at Butte Community College, where Cal coach Jeff Tedford (while scouting a tight end) noticed a skinny QB running around making accurate throws, and offered him a spot with the Golden Bears.

Under Tedford’s tutelage, Rodgers vaulted from unknown passer to surefire first-rounder, wowing pro scouts by tying an NCAA record with 23 consecutive completions to start a game in a near road upset of top-ranked Southern Cal, a team loaded with future NFL stars (and coached by some guy named Pete Carroll). Rodgers looked like the potential first overall pick, but he fell to no. 24, where the Packers selected him as Brett Favre’s heir apparent. Favre, of course, was uninterested in mentoring his replacement, famously telling ESPN, “My contract doesn’t say I have to get Aaron Rodgers ready to play … I’m not obligated one bit to help anyone.”

It was an inauspicious start for a young quarterback, but Rodgers credits his early years as being crucial to his development. Though the player Rodgers is today stems primarily from his talent and work ethic, being a successful NFL quarterback requires luck as well as skill, and being lucky usually means getting to work with the right people. When the Packers fired Mike Sherman and hired McCarthy as head coach after Rodgers’s first season, it altered the direction of both McCarthy’s and Rodgers’s careers.

McCarthy was hardly a slam dunk hire, having coached relatively pedestrian offenses in New Orleans from 2000 to 2004, and having spent the 2005 season as offensive coordinator for the 49ers, a 4-12 team that finished a woeful 30th in the league in scoring and 32nd in total yards. But Packers general manager Ted Thompson brought in McCarthy hoping the coach’s deep knowledge of the West Coast offense and renowned touch with quarterbacks would tame Favre after a 29-interception season, while also developing Favre’s anointed replacement. Though Favre bounced back under McCarthy, throwing for 4,155 yards, 28 touchdowns, and only 15 interceptions in 2007 en route to the NFC title game, he began to threaten retirement, and by 2008 Thompson and the organization were ready to switch to Rodgers, convinced after witnessing his dramatic improvement that the QB had the makings of a future star.

Since his days as an assistant under Hackett at Pitt, McCarthy has run a “QB school” every offseason, where, away from the pressure of preparing for a weekly opponent, McCarthy can teach his quarterbacks the finer points of the position. In addition to extensive drill work, McCarthy often gives his quarterbacks lengthy written tests, once (according to the Sentinel) even asking his non-Montana quarterbacks in Kansas City to write an essay describing the Chiefs’ version of the West Coast offense “from a philosophical perspective.”

Rodgers has clearly benefited from McCarthy’s training. As good of a prospect as Rodgers was coming out of Cal, it’s striking how different he looks now: he’s more athletic, more natural, and has a stronger arm. While primary credit goes to the long hours Rodgers spends developing his craft on his own, McCarthy provided a structure for that process.

Specifically, when Rodgers arrived in the NFL, there was what McCarthy has labeled a “stiffness” to his game. Under McCarthy’s tutelage, that has since melted away to reveal the fluid, smooth quarterback we see today. Tedford, Rodgers’s college coach and a current CFL head man, is an excellent quarterback teacher, but his college passers tended to be a bit robotic: They all dropped back, held the ball, and released it the same way. That made sense for raw high school and junior college passers who had to quickly learn the fine points of quarterbacking in order to execute Tedford’s pro-style attack, but great NFL passers must make their fundamentals serve them, not the other way around.

The most obvious example of Rodgers making this shift is that he used to hold the ball up near his ear while in the pocket on the theory that it cut down on the time he had to bring the ball back before throwing it forward. Under McCarthy and Packers quarterback coach/offensive coordinator Tom Clements, however, Rodgers gradually began holding the ball between the middle of his chest and his throwing shoulder, a more natural spot that keeps his throwing motion compact while allowing him to rotate his body just enough to create extra velocity.

More subtly, Rodgers has improved his accuracy, which might sound crazy when discussing a guy who once completed 23 passes in a row in college. But in the NFL, accuracy must be an every-snap thing, particularly in the West Coast offense. Walsh used to jump all over Montana and Steve Young if they missed the precise spot he wanted on a given play — the upper right corner of a receiver’s jersey, a receiver’s left eye, etc. For Rodgers, the key to improved accuracy was perfecting his footwork. “Learning to time up my drop with each route has been a big thing with me,” Rodgers told ESPN The Magazinein 2011. That didn’t just mean opting for a three-step drop versus a five-step drop, but instead learning that while a hitch route might require a three-step drop with one big and two quick steps, a slant route might benefit from three big steps. Rodgers said that mastering those nuances for every conceivable route allows him “to throw the ball in rhythm and hit the same release point with every throw, meaning that no matter what else is happening, the ball comes out on a similar plane. That’s when accuracy comes.”

Indeed, Rodgers is the most visceral of today’s great quarterbacks, oscillating effortlessly between quick timing passes and lasers thrown while on the move after being flushed from the pocket. He often reminds me less of a traditional quarterback than of a great jump shooter in basketball who can hit a shot falling sideways and out of bounds because he always maintains perfect upper-body form. But the real fun comes from watching Rodgers operate the Packers’ modernized West Coast offense, a system perfectly tailored to his quick release and even quicker mind.

The offense Rodgers operates in Green Bay is based on the same ideas, concepts, and even specific plays that Hackett, McCarthy, and Montana used in Kansas City and that Montana and Hackett had run with the 49ers, all of which is rooted in Walsh’s West Coast offense. While most people think of short timing passes when they hear the term “West Coast offense,” Walsh’s coaching tree — and the coaching tree of his coaching tree — is so long because his insights extended beyond well-designed pass plays to encompass a uniquely thorough, detailed approach to game planning, analyzing defensive weaknesses, and teaching and developing players. Those precepts are Walsh’s true legacy, and they now fuel the Packers’ offensive success.

In McCarthy’s early years, he immersed himself in Walsh’s ideas and language — 22 Z-In, 2 Jet X-Sluggo Seam, and so on. But rather than adhering religiously to those lessons, McCarthy and Rodgers have crafted a version of Walsh’s offense that constantly evolves to keep pace with a changing game. Quoting former Chiefs assistant Jimmy Raye, McCarthy once told USA Today: “‘Football is a cycle. You’re going to see things in this league or out of this league and in college football.’ It’s very important to stay on the front side of that cycle.” The Packers’ offense may be rooted in the playbook McCarthy learned from Hackett 20-plus years ago, but it works because he and Rodgers have subtly blended in new-school tactics.

While the West Coast offense dominated the NFL in the 1990s and early 2000s, it has increasingly fallen out of favor because its emphasis on precision and preparation has too often translated into inflexibility and needless complexity. The traditional West Coast offense features a seemingly countless number of plays — former Packers coach Mike Holmgren once said his playbook contained at least 1,500 plays — because on each play each player had a specific job, such as running a post or a slant. As a result, the only way to take advantage of a shifting, evolving defense was to add yet another new play and hope to call it at the right time, in what amounted to an impossibly hard game of rock-paper-scissors.

That’s not a feasible approach against modern, malleable defenses, and with Rodgers under center, it’s also not necessary. For example, one of the Packers’ most productive pass plays is “three verticals,” in which Green Bay’s receivers have the option to change their routes based on the coverage, trusting Rodgers to see their adjustments in real time.

This idea of multiple concepts within each play flows through Green Bay’s offense. Under Favre and in Rodgers’s early seasons, this typically meant combining multiple pass concepts within the same play and letting the QB pick the side based on the defense. More recently, however, the Packers have made extensive use of “packaged plays,” which combine run blocking from the offensive line with screens or downfield passes by the receivers, while the QB has the option to hand off to a running back or throw downfield.

Under McCarthy, Green Bay was among the first NFL teams to begin using packaged plays, which first began bubbling up in college football roughly five years ago. (McCarthy has several friends coaching college on whom he leans for new ideas, including Kevin Sumlin, the forward-thinking coach at Texas A&M.) The above inside zone running play married to quick “pop” or seam routes by the slot receivers is straight from college football, and is a simple way to keep defenses honest if they try to crash down on Eddie Lacy and Green Bay’s increasingly productive run game. It’s also a way for the Packers to use Rodgers’s quick decision-making ability without putting him in harm’s way.

But the Packers’ success doesn’t stem solely from their ability to embrace the latest and greatest; while Green Bay excels at innovating, it’s also better than any other NFL team at executing many of the same plays Walsh used with Montana, most notably the slant pass. Hard as it is to believe, few NFL teams consistently throw the quick slant anymore, as most have replaced it with skinny posts or quick square-ins, or stopped bothering altogether. Put on a Packers game, though, and it can feel like watching old 49ers game film.

It’s not uncommon for Rodgers to complete five to 10 slant passes in a game — he likes them against soft coverage because they give him easy access, and he loves them against the blitz. When New England tried to bring pressure on Rodgers late in the half, he checked into a basic slant to Nelson and, 45 yards later, Green Bay had scored.

The most famous Joe Montana anecdote so perfectly meshes with his reputation as “Joe Cool” that it seems more written than real: Standing around during a TV timeout, with the ball on the 49ers’ own 8-yard line and his team down three points to the Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII, Montana saw that his teammates, including lineman Harris Barton, had tensed up. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted something else. “There, in the stands,” he said to Barton. “Isn’t that John Candy?”  His teammates immediately relaxed, Montana marched them down the field for the game-winning touchdown, and his legend grew. Great quarterbacks come in different flavors, but the preternaturally relaxed field general is an archetype as old as football itself.

Rodgers is a few Super Bowls shy of earning direct comparisons to Montana, but — particularly compared to Peyton Manning’s manic nerdiness and Tom Brady’s newfound love of high fives, head butts, and F-bombs — he’s the closest thing we have to a modern-day Joe Cool: This season alone, Rodgerspointedly told Packers fans to R-E-L-A-X after a loss and, on one of the most remarkable plays I’ve ever seen, calmly threw a game-winning touchdown pass without even bothering to buckle his chin strap.

By all accounts, Rodgers has always been this way. At a coaching clinic in 2011, Tedford recalled that, before the aforementioned crucial game against USC, Rodgers “was just walking around in the locker room with a smile on his face and getting [his teammates] going, but also getting them relaxed. He was not going haywire and yelling and screaming. He had this confidence about himself, and his leadership ability was unbelievable.”

Of course, similarities in demeanor between Rodgers and Montana wouldn’t matter if the two weren’t also so similar on the field. “When I think about fundamental quarterback play, I think of Aaron and Joe Montana,” McCarthy told the Sentinel. “The productivity is obviously there, but just the way they play the position — their footwork, the balance, the athletic ability, the accuracy of the football, the vision.” I see it too. Montana’s gifts were his accuracy, his decision-making, and his feet, and Rodgers boasts those same attributes — plus a stronger arm.

Rodgers’s talent, drive, and approach to mastering the hardest position in sports have gotten him to this point, but so has his collaboration with McCarthy. Together, coach and QB are on the cusp of winning their second Super Bowl. They’ve already taken the Packers, the old West Coast offense, and the quarterback position into the modern age.

http://grantland.com/features/aaron-rodgers-mike-mccarthy-green-bay-packers-new-age-west-coast-offense/

Former Ice Road Trucker Pleads Guilty to Kidnapping

Timothy Zickuhr. (Courtesy, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department)

Former reality TV star pleads guilty to kidnapping Las Vegas prostitute

Article thanks to David Ferrara and the Las Vegas Review Journal. Links provided:

Dec 15, 2014  A former “Ice Road Truckers” reality-television star pleaded guilty Monday to kidnapping and extorting a Las Vegas prostitute, just as he was scheduled to face a jury on the charges.

Timothy Zickuhr made a deal with prosecutors after defense lawyers learned of DNA evidence that pointed to Zickuhr in the robbery of an 80-year-old woman that occurred while he was out on bail in the kidnapping case.

The 40-year-old Zickuhr was arrested in December after police said he kidnapped Lisa Cadeau, also know by her prostitute moniker “Snow White.” Three months later, authorities said, Zickuhr snatched a purse from an elderly woman outside a Las Vegas casino. In August, authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in the robbery.

“We were concerned about the factual allegations in the new case, while we had definite defenses to the Snow White case,” defense lawyer Roy Nelson said. “It was in Tim’s best interest to negotiate everything.”

Originally facing the possibility of life in prison in both cases, Zickuhr’s deal means that he would be sentenced to a maximum of 6 to 15 years in prison. The sentencing will be held after he pleads guilty in the robbery.

Few details were available Monday about the robbery, but authorities said the victim suffered serious injuries, including a broken hip.

In December, Zickuhr took Cadeau to his apartment on Lynnwood Street, near Sahara Avenue and Paradise Road, after she allegedly took more money than Zickuhr agreed to pay her for sex a few days earlier, police said.

His plot was foiled after Cadeau gave him the phone number of Metro officer Adam Seely, who had previously used Cadeau as a source, according to a police report.

Zickuhr called Seely, not knowing he was a police officer, and demanded $1,000. He then gave the phone to Cadeau, who told Seely, “He’s going to kill me!” the report said.

After arranging a meeting behind the Eureka casino, Seely and another officer drove to the area and arrested Zickuhr.

Zickuhr told officers he planned to sell Cadeau’s services on Craigslist until he recouped the money she owed him, the report said.

He also said he poured cold water onto Cadeau from a mop bucket and locked her in a closet, using backpack straps to bind her wrists, the report said.

Zickuhr appeared in 11 episodes of the History Channel show “IRT: Deadliest Roads,” according to the Internet Movie Database.

He has not worked in television or trucking since his arrest, Nelson said.

Contact reporter David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Find him on Twitter: @randompoker

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/former-reality-tv-star-pleads-guilty-kidnapping-las-vegas-prostitute

Let Them Watch TV

dieselboss.com

How fleets are using new technology to recruit, retain drivers

Article thanks to Aaron Huff and ccjdigital.com. Links provided:

Dec, 2014  Most jobs have a reward waiting at the end of the day: the chance to go home.

Over-the-road truck drivers do not cross this threshold for days and weeks at a time. The truck becomes “home” for at least 10 hours a day while parked at a truck stop, a rest area, or other nondescript location that can accommodate 18 wheelers.

Team drivers may spend all 10-hours of their off-duty time in the sleeper while the wheels keep rolling. The reward for working extra hard and driving 70 hours in a week? To stay parked for 34 consecutive hours to reset their clocks.

The quality of life for drivers has always contributed to the tur nover and shortage problem, but it has now reached a climax. The estimated industry-wide cost to replace a driver is $9,000 with an annual turnover rate at long-distance carriers at 112 percent, according to the American Trucking Associations.

The ATA estimates that the industry could immediately fill 30,000 driving positions. With the rate of driver turnover and the expected growth in freight volumes, trucking companies will need to fill 100,000 positions every year for the next 10 years. To do this, everyone in the industry agrees that trucking will have to become a more appealing career choice for younger workers.

A recent analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the American Transportation Research Institute revealed that trucking has a disproportionate number of employees aged 45 years or older. Over the past 20 years, the number of younger drivers that make up the industry — those 35 and under — has dropped sharply.

Let them watch TV

One way fleets are trying to improve the quality of life for drivers, especially for the younger generation, is to make their equipment as attractive as possible. Perhaps nothing brings the comforts of home closer than television.

Several attempts have been made to bring television to drivers and fleets. The first company to try was Park ‘N View when it created a partnership with Travel Centers of America in 1996 to build a nationwide infrastructure to deliver television and telecommunication services.

“The dream was to improve the quality of life,” said Ian Williams, the founder of Park ‘N View, during a meeting with CCJ in Salt Lake City, Utah, Dec. 3. Williams is now president of EpicVue, a DIRECTV retailer that has created an all-inclusive television subscription service for fleets.

Park ‘N View was limited by the technology at the time. Williams said he wanted to build a wireless infrastructure to transmit TV signals to drivers. This required a license from the Federal Communications Commission. The agency denied its request and Park ‘N View had no other option than to install cables and ports in truck stop parking lots.

The company invested more than $220 million in infrastructure and Travel Centers of America received 35 percent of its gross revenues, he said. To expand the infrastructure the company took on a substantial amount of debt which became impossible to service, Williams said.

Park ‘N View closed and many of its employees moved to a new startup called IdleAire in 2000. IdleAir was also plagued with infrastructure costs. The company created a service that connects to the window of a truck through a distinctive yellow tube that delivers TV, Internet, heating, cooling and electrical outlets.

IdleAir filed for bankruptcy in 2008. Convoy Technologies has since purchased its assets and reopened some of its sites.

Today, drivers can get a variety of on-demand entertainment using their own wireless subscriptions. This has filled a void in the market, but a smartphone or iPad does not deliver the same experience as holding a remote to watch your favorite shows, movies and sports games in real time — or better yet, recording them ahead of time to fast-forward through commercials.

Some drivers have gone to great lengths to install satellite antennas and receivers that they use at home on their trucks. Home equipment is not able to withstand the rigors of the road, however. Until recently, satellite TV was out of reach for the industry at large.

To find out more about the latest technology and services that now make satellite TV a viable option for fleets, click on the following companies.

Winegard>>

Winegard, a manufacturer of antenna systems, has new mobile antennas specifically for the trucking industry to withstand harsh conditions. These antennas have helped open up a new market for fleets to extend satellite TV service to drivers.

EpicVue>>

This year, Pride Transport, a 400-truck refrigerated and flatbed carrier based in Salt Lake City, joined a growing number of fleets that are providing drivers with a premium DIRECTV subscription from EpicVue that includes all hardware for a low monthly cost.

DISH>>

Long Haul Trucking, headquartered in Albertville, Minn., installed satellite television systems on all 100 company-driver trucks. It uses a pay-as-you-go subscription from DISH as part of an incentive plan.

To see a photo gallery of satellite TV options for fleets, CLICK here.

http://www.ccjdigital.com/let-them-watch-tv-fleets-using-new-technology-to-recruit-retain-drivers/?utm_medium=single_article&utm_campaign=site_click&utm_source=in_story_related

UNDERSTANDING VEHICLE WEIGHT RATINGS

news.pickuptrucks.com

Article thanks to Peter duPre at hardworkingtrucks.com. Links provided:

If you want to use your pickup for work and avoid asscociated liability issues, you have to play by the numbers

Dec, 2014  If you haul or tow heavy loads as a part of your business (and who in the construction trades doesn’t?) there are various numbers that you need to pay attention to and realize that no suspension upgrades to your vehicle will change these numbers.

It’s also important to note, exceeding these ratings set by the vehicle manufacturer exposes the vehicle driver and company to serious liability issues:

• Gross Axle Weight Rating or GAWR, is the maximum distributed weight that can be supported by a given axle. This figure is set by the vehicle manufacturer and cannot be changed.

Front and rear axles each have their own individual GAWR and the figure takes into account the weight of the vehicle, fuel carried, passengers, weight of cargo and tongue weight (if you are towing). GAWR is fixed and never changes.

The load placed on an axle changes as when cargo is added or unloaded, or moved ahead or behind the rear axle housing. This includes adding the weight of the trailer tongue.

Using a weight-distributing hitch when towing heavy trailers helps transfer trailer tongue weight from the rear axle to the front.

• Gross Vehicle Weight Rating or GVWR is the maximum allowable weight of a vehicle taking into account the weight of the vehicle, passengers, fuel and cargo. This figure is set by the manufacturer and cannot be changed.

For example a standard cab, two-wheel drive 2012 Ford F-150 with a 145-inch wheelbase and powered by a 5.0 liter V-8 has a GVWR of 8,200 lbs (with heavy duty payload package), which includes the 5,080 vehicle weight and a maximum payload of 3,120 lbs.

The payload figure includes everything else: the weight of passengers, laptop, added accessories, tools, fuel and any cargo being hauled in the box.

While the loads hauled in your truck may vary, the GVWR does not.

However, the Gross Vehicle Weight (GVW), the weight of the vehicle at any given moment is constantly changing as you burn fuel, as well as load and unload cargo and passengers.

• Gross Combined Weight Rating or GCWR is an important number to pay attention to if you are towing a trailer. The GCWR is set by the vehicle manufacturer and is the maximum allowable weight of the combination of the tow vehicle and trailer. This figure is set by the manufacturer and cannot be changed.

According to the engineers at Ford Motor Company this figure is determined by adding together the vehicle’s listed curb weight, allowable payload, driver and passenger weight and trailer weight (with load).

It is not a measurement of weight of the tow vehicle and trailer but the combined maximum weight limit of the two separate vehicles, once they are attached together.

Note: Exceeding the GCWR – even for just a few miles – is exceedingly dangerous and can lead to overheating brakes, strain on the suspension and axles, extra stress on the tires leading to blowout, and more. Keep your truck and trailer within GCWR at all times.

http://www.hardworkingtrucks.com/understanding-vehicle-weight-ratings/?utm_source=hwt&utm_medium=email&utm_content=12-10-2014&utm_campaign=HWT&ust_id=137f89555c