For goodness sake
By adamg - Sun, 04/06/2008 - 11:26pm.
We spotted this sign just before a downslope on River Street in Dedham yesterday while aimlessly driving around the town. Turns out a Jake brake is an engine-based truck brake that sounds like a machine gun going off.
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I first saw such a sign in Ogunquit, Maine
about nine years ago. I had no idea what it meant, so I asked and got answers.
Jake brake
I'd never heard the term until about a month ago, when my husband was snickering about a sign up here on the north shore that read something like "trucks may not use compression braking." He said that must be part of the full employment act for sign painters, when "no jake brake" was much shorter.
Then I made him tell me what jake brakes were.
Trademark issue
Since other companies besides Jacobs make compression brakes, Jacobs feels that signs like this unfairly single them out. It's a bit like putting "No Xerox Copies Accepted" on a government form.
Jake
Ya, but at what point does it become generic, like xerox copies or kleenex or an IRA, which everybody knows is a bunch of bloody bastards that gave up the bombs and guns and got into pension management.
Ahhhh...
...I don't think he knew (and I certainly didn't) that the name came from a trademarked product.
the real question is...
...if the sign says NO JAKE BRAKES and a truck rumbles on by using a competitor's compression brake, could the driver argue that he didn't have to obey the sign?
"The sign says No Jakes, but I'm using National Performance Compression Brakes, so.... BRAPRRPRPRPARPARPARPAPRAPRPARPARAPRPARP"
So...
It doesn't only apply to fire trucks?
With gas at $3.15/g and the planet running a fever? Tsk.
In the family Pious
So we're excused. :-).
Isn't a jake break what the firefighters are looking for in their contract talks with the city?