Automatic Transmissions
Increasingly, companies have been equipping their trucks with automatic transmissions for a variety of reasons. Operating a manual transmission requires more skill and attention on the part of the driver, partly due to the unsynchronized transmission found in heavy-duty trucks. Companies have found that switching from manual to automatic transmissions has many benefits, including increased fuel efficiency, increased driver retention, reduced wear and tear on the internal gears of transmissions (inexperienced drivers may frequently grind the gears if proper shifting techniques are not followed), reduced driver fatigue, and reduced accidents (manuals require more attention from the driver, thus increasing the chances for an accident). All of these factors together add up to benefit the company by reducing costs incurred from transmission repairs, accidents, and driver turnover (a driver frustrated by a manual transmission may decide to quit his/her job).
Read more about this topic: Trucking Industry In The United States, 1990s-present
Famous quotes containing the word automatic:
“Predictions of the future are never anything but projections of present automatic processes and procedures, that is, of occurrences that are likely to come to pass if men do not act and if nothing unexpected happens; every action, for better or worse, and every accident necessarily destroys the whole pattern in whose frame the prediction moves and where it finds its evidence.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)