A Toytown resident this week lambasted City Council for recently rescinding a three-year-old prohibition on truckers using jake brakes on 31st Street below Mill Run in his neighborhood.

Mike Servello presented a petition supporting his complaint with the signatures of 31 neighbors, after he spoke about his distress caused by the loud hammering of the supplemental braking device.

“You stole something from us, and we want it back,” Servello told council.

He has post traumatic stress syndrome, and the hammering of the device is a trigger, Servello said.

Council imposed the ban in 2021 in response to resident complaints, but rescinded the ban in July because police lack the manpower to enforce it, because banning a vehicle safety device might not comport with legal guidelines and because the ban could potentially create liability for the city, according to a council member at the time.

“You are ill-informed and ignorant,” Servello said, explaining that he was a truck driver and a mechanic. “I know what I’m talking about.”

Jake brakes cause air that flows into the cylinders of diesel engines to exit through the exhaust valves without powering the pistons, helping slow trucks without the use of their regular service brakes, according to wewin.com.

One member of a local trucking family defended the use of jake brakes.

“I know they can be a nuisance for people living nearby,” said Kadden Smith of E.F. Smith Inc. in Roaring Spring.

And he’s biased, as a truck driver, Smith conceded.

But jake brakes can be critical in helping to prevent overheating of regular brakes, and that overheating can lead to catastrophic failure, crashes and deaths, Smith said.

Jake brakes are especially valuable for new, inexperienced drivers — many of whom are on the roads nowadays, Smith said.

Jake brakes also help reduce expensive wear and tear on the regular braking systems of trucks at no extra cost, which is especially appealing for drivers who work on — or who own — the trucks they drive, Smith said.

But jake brakes shouldn’t be necessary in Toytown, said neighborhood resident Scott Brown.

They work like downshifting of a transmission and they’re intended to help drivers control their rigs on significant grades out on the highway — not for use in cities or for speeds below 30 mph, Brown said.

The speed limit on the streets in Toytown is 25 mph, Brown said.

Some drivers seem to use the devices incessantly, “jockeying” their trucks as they deal with traffic, including on nearby streets that are virtually level, Brown said.

Some seem to enjoy it, he added.

“It’s ridiculous,” Brown said.

It’s true that some drivers may like the sound of the jake brakes, and there are some who “can definitely abuse it,” Smith said.

He is a “motorhead” himself, and likes the sounds of “loud pipes,” he said.

There are also drivers for whom a prohibition sign might cause “a little bit of (the) outlaw to come out,” Smith said.

But despite claims to the contrary, jake brakes are a legitimate safety device, useful in many cases, necessary in others, including at entrances to towns, especially where speed limits are reduced, and at the bottom of hills, according to Smith.

Once brakes are overheated past a certain point, “you’re just along for the ride,” Smith said.

“It can happen very fast,” he added.

He’s never lost his brakes altogether, but he’s been driving when the heat has built up, and “it’s scary,” he said.

Brown understands why the police department didn’t have time for targeted enforcement of the jake brake prohibition on 31st Street, given staff shortages and higher priority matters, he said.

But it makes no sense to take away the “tool,” he said.

With the prohibition in place, an officer who just happened to be nearby when a trucker clearly used the device unnecessarily could say something, according to Brown.

And if residents were to report a habitually offending trucking company, a phone call from police to company management might lead to a request from management for drivers to refrain, he said.

Robert Pletcher and his wife, Carol, of Spruce Avenue share Servello’s and Brown’s concerns.

There’s no need for a competent driver to use his jake brakes on 31st Street, with its 25 mph speed limit, Robert said, speaking in his living room Wednesday.

One of the problems for the neighborhood is that few motorists coming through comply with that speed limit, Carol said, citing observations made when the police department set up an electronic speed limit reader nearby.

Gouges on the guardrail on the right side coming down from Mill Run attest to that speeding, according to Robert.

The recently ended three-year jake brake prohibition was actually effective — insofar as the speeds during that period were generally lower — in the 35 to 40 mph range, as opposed to the 45 to 50 mph range, Robert said.

One of the Pletchers’ neighbors, who lives on Walnut Avenue, isn’t as bothered as them by the jake brakes, but still regards the sound as an “annoyance.”

“No worse than the trains,” said the man, who declined to give his name.

The Norfolk Southern mainline is nearby, including a grade crossing at Coburn, where engineers sound their horns for safety, the man said.

Jake brake noise is less frequent than train noise, he said.

Dennis Jones of Walnut Avenue would prefer not to hear the jake brakes, but doesn’t pay much attention, given his long years of work in a noisy factory.

The sounds of truck trailer tires slamming into manholes in the neighborhood are actually more common, Jones said.

All the noises set his pugs, Penny and Bobo, to barking, Jones said.

Andrew Harrison of Walnut Avenue feels bad about Servello’s PTSD.

But the noise of the jake brakes doesn’t bother him, probably because he grew up near the Horseshoe Curve, where there were “trains in my backyard” all the time, he said.

He hesitates to oppose a safety feature like jake brakes, given the many accidents that have occurred on 31st Street, he said.

Trucks produced in the last five to 10 years are equipped with quieter jake brakes, but those trucks are expensive, and not everyone can afford them, Smith said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-381-3152.