Intellipark Takes the Sting Out of Parking Brake Valves
Intellipark helps mitigate runaway crashes and is the foundation for automated and autonomous truck parking. Photos: Bendix
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Intellipark helps mitigate runaway crashes and is the foundation for automated and autonomous truck parking. Photos: Bendix
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As much as I enjoy driving tractor-trailers, one thing that has irked me for many years is the parking brake valves on the dashboard. The two push-pull valves — the yellow one for tractor brakes and the red one for trailer brakes – are awkward to release because they must be pushed hard and held before brakes are released. And when pulled to apply the brakes, they pop out, sometimes stinging one’s fingers – my fingers, anyway, which I suppose makes me a wimp.
Those valves might be low on professional drivers’ complaint lists, but I doubt that I’m the only one who finds them clumsy to use. And there’s a better way. European heavy and medium trucks use a handy joystick-like control that applies the parking brakes when swung one way and releases them when swung another. A collar that’s pulled up by one’s index and middle fingers unlocks the stick for movement either way. It’s simple and very easy to use. Paccar employs this on the medium-duty cabovers sold by its Kenworth and Peterbilt divisions.
That the joystick parking-brake device is used here tells me that the system is not illegal in the U.S. Why, then, does every American-built truck have the two push-pull valves (or one yellow valve if the truck is not made to pull a trailer)? Because it’s an industry standard, promulgated by the Society of Automotive Engineers in the 1950s, explains Fred Anderskey, director, customer solutions for Bendix, which is among the manufacturers of air-brake equipment. The shape, color, and lettering on the valves is in the standard, but it’s not in a federal regulation.
Bendix sees a more serious problem with the valves: They sometimes do not apply the parking …Read the rest of this story
