If the absurd increase in the heights of the fronts of cars continues - problem solved.
Trapped Under Trucks
61–70 of 241 posts
Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#62Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#63Fortunately, if you avoided listening to environmentalists, transit advocates, and people with children and bought a high ride-height vehicle like a Dodge Ram 1500, your vehicle will be tall enough to actually contact the truck or trailer without a decapitation! Pickups and SUVs are way safer, guys. Up to you what you do with the information.
High ride-height vehicles are safer for you in specific kinds of crashes. They aren’t safer for everyone else.
Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#64There's something I don't understand about this crash in particular: It sounds like Marcos' death is blamed on the actions of the truck driver, as well as the lack of an under-ride bumper. But don't we normally consider drivers responsible for crashing into objects towards which they're travelling? It doesn't sound like a situation where the truck jumped into traffic suddenly from a hidden driveway: > The truck edged…
> But don't we normally consider drivers responsible for crashing into objects towards which they're travelling?
No. If you are traveling a highway at posted speed and have a green light, and someone makes a left turn across your path, you’re not responsible if you can’t stop in time. The turning vehicle must yield to all oncoming vehicles close enough to be a hazard.
Similarly no, you are not responsible if you hit a truck that simply pulls straight out onto a street with no regard for the oncoming vehicles, which have the right of way.
Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#65Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#66>An investigator with the local police department blamed the collision on the truck driver, who was initially charged with negligent homicide, though charges were eventually dropped I wonder why. Another issue is the size of trucks. The state where I lived: * Truck size was limited, large trucks were only allowed on one Highway. Goods were transferred to smaller Trucks for transport to factories. * Driving trucks on…
> Reagan de-regulated and Trucks can be any size, plus they can clog the roads on Sunday. The last item I do not know when it was enabled, but it happened after Reagan.
If you want federal highway money, then your highways need to conform to federal standards. These standards allow for trailers up to 53' in length and up to 80,000lbs to operate without any prior authorization as long as they otherwise conform to vehicle standards.
States are always free to turn down the money and enact whatever standards they like; however, the standards seem incredibly reasonable to me and not at all something you can simply blame on a single President passing laws sent to him by Congress. States also have the task of enforcing laws on the highway and can operate commercial vehicle checkpoints.
> I now heard of trucks with 3 trailers but never saw one. [...] time to go back to freight trains.
You're still limited by overall length. FedEx will often operate two short trailers in an articulated tandem. They do this for what I hope are obvious reasons that cannot be fulfilled by rail transport.
Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#67This article is intentionally written to sidestep the victim driver's own responsibility. It's hard to underride into a truck if you're driving attentively. That's not to say they are wrong, if the fix is as simple and as cheap as described. I do value the expose of the politics around the non-action, even if TFA has other faults. Mandatory AEB (automatic emergency braking) systems should address it to some degree, a…
Did you read the whole article?
There’s a second accident cited where the truck changed lanes suddenly and trapped the car next to them under the trailer and dragged it for quite distance. Then the car caught fire and the driver was burned to death. Sounds like it’s pretty easy to underride if the truck changes lanes or swerved into you. Not a victim that I would blame.
What about the accident where the truck blew through a stop sign at 40mph and the victim was wedged underneath the trailer. I wouldn’t blame that victim either for not avoiding a truck moving at speed outside their line of sight.
What about the person who was rear-ended and propelled under the truck in front of them. Should that victim be blamed for their lack of attentiveness?
Yeah, people can be better drivers, but we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road. Even if it costs equipment manufacturers several hundred more dollars
Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I watched this last night, and it's always interesting to people in business talk about the cost of saving lives. There was one point where the reporter was interviewing a guy from the ATA (American Trucking Associations) where the ATA person says that one lost life is too many. And this is very common across so many industries, safety first as they always say. But then as soon as you put a cost associated with savin…
> There was one point where the reporter was interviewing a guy from the ATA (American Trucking Associations) where the ATA person says that one lost life is too many. You see the same crap inside companies. All-hands rah-rah meetings or zoom calls or mass emails with this kind of stuff in it, then the next day, directives to the contrary. Or, the handbook says to do X, for safety reasons, but your supervisor says to…
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Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#69>>It was a little after 7 p.m. and Ricardo Marcos was rolling through the darkness in his gray Hyundai Elantra. Marcos had spent a long day toiling as a mechanic at a trucking company in McAllen, Texas, a sunbaked city nestled right on the U.S.-Mexico border. Reading the opening story, it sounds like he fell asleep or wasn't paying attention. We will never know, but it's very sad no matter. It's also true, assuming h…
The purpose of the NHTSA and vehicle safety regulations broadly is not to litigate who is at fault in an accident and sentence them to death, it is to make traveling on the road by motor vehicle or bicycle or foot as safe as is feasible given costs and available technology and data about the nature of injuries in collisions. Most people most of the time are in control of their vehicles and are paying attention to the…
Sorry, saying mass doesn't matter is a false assertion. A 1000lb trailer will absolutely react differently in this scenario, including getting pushed up and out or yielding/crushing.
NHTSA also has to weigh the cost of compliance. Cars also could have stronger A pillars, that way the burden of compliance is placed on the one at higher risk.
The article tries to make it a big conspiracy by Big Truck, that bothered me. Trucks are easy to hate on, but efficient transport over very long distances is a tremendous strength of the American economy.
Re: Trapped Under Trucks
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Coming from countries where truck transport is not allowed on Sundays - it's great. Means that if you're going with your family somewhere on Sunday it's very quiet on the roads. Also awesome for long distance driving, always plan those for a Sunday and the traffic flows much smoother. As for the idea that it moves the traffic to other days - no it doesn't, because a lot of that traffic wouldn't be driving on Sunday a…
Perhaps traffic flows smoother because there is just less traffic altogether on Sunday. And anyway, who is operating these trucks that would be driving on Sunday if it was legal, but instead don't drive at all? If trucks aren't driving on Sunday anyway then there is little need to ban them.
I believe there is less truck driving here on Sundays even though it is legal because truckers try to take days off and see family too.