The bark of a trucker’s jake brake

Maine State Police Lt. Randy Nichols said earlier this week that state police intend to give “special attention” to noise from truck engine brakes – commonly known as “jake brakes” – as well as to illegally modified motor vehicle exhaust systems.

Irritated by the deep barking sound of the engine brake – emitted when compressed air is released from the cylinder near top dead center of the compression stroke – homeowners who live near the Maine Turnpike and other heavily traveled truck routes have complained about the ruckus for years. According to a newspaper story from The Associated Press, Kennebunk homeowner Beryl Oswell has even tried putting mattresses against a door and window in her home to block out noise from the turnpike, to no avail. Oh, what the lady would give for just one good night’s sleep, she told the AP reporter.

Truckers rely on engine brakes to supplement the slowing/stopping process on steep downgrades, thereby saving brake linings that can otherwise rapidly overheat and lead to a brake-loss disaster, the thought of which can make veteran truck drivers pucker up something fierce. The engine brake is a hydraulically operated device that helps a truck engine absorb power by releasing compressed air via the exhaust system, rather than forcing the piston down and releasing power into the drivetrain. To truckers, the jake brake is a friend and a safety measure, pure and simple, and they’ll tell you that today’s more powerful engines and higher speed limits make the device a necessity.

Hard to argue with that. Lord knows, if there’s anyone you’d want in a safety-first operating mode it would be the guy barreling down on you from behind, tail over the dasher, in a tractor-trailer behemoth the length of a football field carrying a full load of high-test gasoline.

Still, “The engine brake is an annoying, objectionable sound that tends to wake people up at night,” Lt. Nichols said. “Sometimes the sound can carry for miles.” That’s why turnpike officials and police have informed trucking outfits that excessive-noise laws will be enforced and truckers are expected to be on their best behavior in making their late-night rounds.

A spokeswoman for the Maine Better Transportation Association believes most truck drivers comply with state regulations involving the matter. “There’s a very small minority who perhaps use those brakes excessively,” she said.

All of which leads to a theory of mine about those highway signs, common to most every Maine community with a hill in its built-up section, that warn truckers to cool it with the jake brakes. The theory, which probably holds about as much water as any other abstract principle I’ve laid on you over the years in my dubious role of Highly Trained Observer, is this: You can pretty much tell how a community perceives itself by how the warning signs are worded. Those perceptions run the gamut from polite and politically correct to blue-collar blunt and pragmatic.

Thus, just outside Camden – which pictures itself as a genteel place inhabited by genteel souls of good pedigree not inclined to offend visitors – the sign politely reads: “No Engine Brakes, Please, Next 8/10 Mile,” while 20-something miles up the line in working-class Searsport the chamber of commerce-like pleasantries have been dispensed with and “No Jake Brakes Next 4 Miles” is the message.

When the traveler gets to far-flung Fort Fairfield on the wild northern frontier he finds that the guideline has become Aroostook County-specific, leaving little room for misunderstanding. “Jake Brakes Prohibited 10 P.M.-6 A.M.” a hillside sign advises, and you get the impression that truckers who ignore the warning – like speeders on their way through town – do so at great peril to their wallets. It would not surprise me to learn that by the time one reaches the end of the trail up around Dickey some place the warnings have progressed to something even more unambiguous, perhaps along the line of, “Jake Brakes Illegal. Violators Will Be Neutered.”

I don’t pretend to speak for the aformentioned Beryl Oswell, sleepless down there in Kennebunk and not about to take it any more. But I suspect that, statewide, there is many a long-suffering hillside dweller – mindful of summer coming on and the windows due to be flung open once the monsoon season passes – who’d have no great objection to such a sign sprouting in the neighborhood.

This is probably not the type of “special attention” that the state police had in mind in promising to tackle the noise-pollution problem. But as an attention-getter it would seem a pretty good starting point.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.