As designed, should Semis be allowed on the same roads as cars?
 

As designed, should Semis be allowed on the same roads as cars?

They implore us to give them more room to stop. Why not require more braking to equal passenger cars. It seems to me that if they want to travel with the rest of us, they ought to have similar performance.

Trucks certainly are big disruptors of uniformity. But my bigger issue is with the SUV's which have crap for performance, high bumpers, and driven by people who think they are driving Ferrari's.

That is, for the most part semi drivers Know they are driving big pigs. Can't say that for the typical Tahoe or Escalade driver.

So, how about making SUV's have to perform like a passenger car first. Porsche certainly has nailed it (surpassed) with the Cayenne.

Physics were never your strong suit, were they?

Judging by the time of post, I expect that Q was directed at DAE. (?)

It's true that physics work against big rigs, but newer and better braking technology could easily be built into them.

It's all a matter of $.

OK, lets redesign and rebuild the entire Federal Highway system. That should put some people to work.

Seems a little too late to be asking this question.

Yup. You were too quick for me, and snuck one in between.

No, it couldn't. The brakes work fine - it's that pesky little matter of the maximum frictional forces between the tires and the road that comes back to haunt them... ;)

Using your logic, trains could stop as quickly as a Miata if you simply spent more money on the brakes...

folks when Lucy ala 'braindead beotch' pulls a doozy in front of your P at 50..
we have hope...
Freightliner..eats Lucy.

Rika

I'm no rocket scientist, but I find it hard to believe that better braking could not be employed.

What's wrong with:
- disc brakes all the way around?
- more tires on the road?
- larger braking surfaces (swept area?)
- lighter loads if nothing else

Big rigs routinely plow into stopped traffic - around here it can go from 65 to zero in the blink of an eye. I just don't trust many of the drivers I see. They need more brakes if they are going to drive around here.

BTW - the passenger cars on the commuter trains in So Cal have added disc brakes to help with deceleration.

Exactly.

I'm glad you brought up trains...

I read a great column in a model railroad magazine years ago, written by a railroad engineer who had also been a long haul trucker. He was speaking to the level of regulation and oversight from the DOT in his two different professions. Essentially, trains and railroad engineers are far more heavily regulated and far more closely watched than over the road trucks and truckers.

He was asking why this should be. Trucks operate in far closer proximity to far more people than do trains. Yet, as an engineer, the DOT monitors his every move. The black box records his speed at all times, his application of brakes, and other data pertinent to the operation of his locomotives. That black box is regularly tapped by DOT officials, who will fine him for speeding and other violations based upon data gleaned from that box (it picks up data through the rails as to where he is, what the speed limit is, and stuff like that).

No such thing in the trucking world. Oh, companies have their black boxes with which they monitor their drivers, but he said they are not required to turn them over to the DOT for periodic monitoring (this column was written years ago - does anyone know if this has changed?). That, and the boxes can give the speed of the truck, but not the speed limit of the stretch of road it is travelling. I.e., it could be doing 60, with everything looking just fine, but it might actually be in a 45 zone.

Anyway, I'm never one for more government monitoring, but it appears the trucking industry could use a bit more. We all see some horribly unsafe truckers out there among us.

Their brakes are fine... truck drivers need to observe adequate following distances from the vehicles in front of them.

Yeah, I know if they do, jackasses will pull into the large space front of them, but that's to be expected... and if the jackass wants to endanger his/her life, let 'em.

David, what prompted you to create this poll... a recent run-in with a semi?

I suspect the Teamsters Union has had a large part in stopping any oversight of their members.

Freeway locked up in front of me, and in my rear view mirror was the grille of a very large truck. While I had plenty of room to stop, he did not. Thankfully the left lane was open!

I don't see how you can say this - they simply cannot brake like the other vehicles they are around.

Yes. What are we going to build a whole new set of roads?

Truckers should be allowed to mount cameras on the front of their cabs. Every idiot who cuts them off, or fails to maintain adequate highway speeds should be found, and fined and have their drivers license revoked.

Trucking companies keep up with their drivers' speed and location by GPS. A bud of mine who owns/runs a trucking company told me this in '97. He can watch his drivers on a large computer screen that shows the truck's location and speed as well as the speed limit on that particular stretch of road.

He tells his drivers to drive the speed limit or else they're fired.

If the semi behind you hadn't been so close, he wouldn't have been endangering your life.

I seem to remember a braking system whereby in a panic stop a large steel plate with a thick rubber layer would be engaged from the trailer directly to the road. This resulted in a hugely increased contact patch and considerably shortened braking distance.

Maybe it was just someone's pie in the sky idea posted in Scientific American.