Everyone Needs a Runaway Ramp
On most mountainous roads you will encounter runaway ramps– unpaved spurs branching off the highway, with loose sand and gravel sloping sharply upwards, and prominently marked “TRUCK RUNAWAY RAMP”.
It’s just a fact of life that if you’re a trucker, eventually something will go wrong, and sometimes very, very wrong. Up in the mountains, when your brakes fail, you’re in serious trouble. And not only you, but every other vehicle in proximity.
If you can’t grind your transmission into first gear, then your forty tons of payload will turn your truck into a missile. In less than a minute, any brakes you have left will burn to a rancid crisp and you will sit helpless at the wheel of a projectile, trying to avoid everything in your path before you hurtle off the road at the next sharp bend.
To offer some salvation from such disasters, highway engineers have designed strategically placed escapes onto which the runaway rig can be directed. Even a raging rocket, once on the ramp, will sink into the soft sand in a controlled fashion, dragging itself to a stop.
It’s a rare life and a rare career which doesn’t have its scary “mountain pass moments”. Changing technology, a partner with divergent plans, regulatory changes, health issues….. these and any of a hundred other factors can in an instant turn your personal or professional life into a nightmare. And that’s where the runaway ramp comes in.
Most of us are simply too busy and too preoccupied to develop a carefully considered “Plan B” for our careers, but all of us need to make enough time to have a runaway ramp. A cushion of savings, a healthy network, some other skills… the things that you know you would need if someone suddenly turned off the lights of your current career. Such are the things that make the difference between a smoking disaster and a six month transition to a new life.
Have you thought about your runaway ramp?
See video of truck hitting runaway ramp. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IibhwiUoRtA)