Fuel for Thought

Reliable Knowledge

Is your knowledge reliable? Today we have access to so much information from so many sources. We can turn to the internet to seek knowledge. There is social media available to try to gain information from other people's experiences. There are videos to show you many different ways to accomplish a task and most of you have come to know this type of learning as YouTube University. There is Reddit, LinkedIn and Wikipedia, just to name a few. Some of us even still use face to face, in person conversations to solicit opinions from peers or supposed knowledgeable people. Along with all the information available to you, there is also a plethora of misinformation or unreliable knowledge being given freely. Some advice may be given with malice or ill intent, while others may give flawed knowledge because they actually believe it is true. No matter the reason for unreliable information, it is ultimately up to you to discern the validity of said information and seek other sources to confirm the truth or debunk the myth.
We are all subject to biases within our own knowledge based on our unique experiences. With that said, do you ever question if what you have always known to be true is still valid? Just because it WAS true doesn’t necessarily mean it IS true today.
Diesel truck emissions were notoriously bad in the beginning. If you had a bad experience with an emissions system of a truck in its infancy, you may still believe that all emissions are faulty today. In fact there are more emissions trucks today without many issues than there are with catastrophic emissions failures. These systems have improved over time and have become more reliable than previous versions. This is not to say the emission systems of today's truck are without maintenance, but with proper care, they are vastly more reliable than the first years models. If your only source of reliability for these trucks are from the shop technicians, of course they will say they see a lot of them in their shops. What they do not and cannot say is the number of trucks they never see with major emissions issues as they wouldn’t have been in their shop. Where you get your knowledge is important as is the perspective of the person giving it.
Another big debate among truck drivers is manual transmissions vs. automated manual transmissions (you always know which side of the fence they are on when they call them automatic transmissions). Whatever your belief in two pedals or three, neither option for a transmission will determine the drivers level of safety, pulling power or professionalism. The same holds true for collision mitigation systems, lane assist or automatic braking systems. The driver should know how to properly and safely operate the truck he or she is driving and should always be in control of the vehicle. All of the safety systems on new trucks are for assisting not replacing the driver’s responsibilities. Were the first safety assist systems perfect? Absolutely not, they were sketchy at best. Are today's safety assist systems, like collision mitigation, perfect? Absolutely not, but they are leaps and bounds better than the first ones introduced in trucks. If you are still basing your information of truck safety assist systems on how well they worked years ago, that is outdated and unreliable knowledge.
Technology changes very rapidly nowadays, it is up to us to decipher the now truth from the old truth and that knowledge will likely require more sources for your knowledge gathering than it did in the past.
Don’t let old information blur your judgement when considering new products or ideas. Seek reliable knowledge from multiple sources. Don’t take my word for it, look around, check to see if what I just said is true. You decide.

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
-  Nicolaus Copernicus

See you down the road,
Greg