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Trapped Under Trucks

propublica.org

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Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#121

Post by bombcar »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #92
bombcar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the loading dock. The vast vast majority of trucks are not filled to the brim (and even if they're at their weight limit, they often have "air" in the box). "Lowboys" are mainly used for large construction equipment where they need the extra height. A semi-trailer is a surprisingly cheap piece of equipment. Some trucks that are special purpose use the lower areas (see https://www.mayflower.com for an example; ho…

Retrofitting loading docks to work with lower-floor vehicles would be trivial, not to mention many buildings that could not accept deliveries would be able to.

You’d potentially have to load from the side.

Probably more effective to move the trailer wheels to the far back of the trailer.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#122

Post by wldcordeiro »

massysett wrote: post #64
CoastalCoder wrote: post #17

There'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…

Bigger vehicles love utilizing "physics right of way" to get what they want and it sounds like that's what happened here. Even pick-up truck drivers do stuff where they basically put you in situations where you give them what they want or they run into you and take no damage. Big vehicles on the road are an absolute problem at all levels.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#123

Post by 8note »

JimtheCoder wrote: post #18
jmclnx wrote: post #8

>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…

"If you need 3 trailers, time to go back to freight trains." Trains can only run on train tracks. The tracks/train stations don't always go close to where the freight needs to go. It is bordering on impossible to build new rail infrastructure to get freight where it needs to go. It takes a lot longer to ship something on a train than on a truck. Add on the fact that transport in general is getting more expensive, and…

Trucking is expensive. If you care about cost, you're gonna trade off time to use a more cost efficient method, like a train.

Where trucks do have the advantage is truckers though. You can saddle them with debt and take all their money as varying fees, then reposses their home and get some new rube to take out a loan to buy it from you.

The truckers are plentiful, and willing to bleed our for a couple crumbs, which is a much better deal than trains where the conductors are union employees. It's much harder to make them take out debt to pay you more

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#124

Post by 8note »

shakow wrote: post #34
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might see the truck edging out of a driveway and trust that they're going to properly yield right of way and not make themselves an obstacle. By the time I realize "my" mistake, I might not have enough distance to stop.

Without putting blame anywhere and independently of who has the right of way, don't you just have your preservation instinct kicking in telling you that just giving a bit of brakes is not a bad idea, and that the risk/gain ratio of losing 10 seconds of your day vs. getting killed is not worth it?

Mine kicks in to say that those trucks shouldn't be on the road

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#125

Post by 8note »

slt2021 wrote: post #44
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might see the truck edging out of a driveway and trust that they're going to properly yield right of way and not make themselves an obstacle. By the time I realize "my" mistake, I might not have enough distance to stop.

Do you want to be right or alive? Pick one

That's why you bring a gun, to shoot the large truck drivers.

That way you can be both right and alive.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#126

Post by pnw »

kelnos wrote: post #114
pnw wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NHTSA definitely seems like one of the more dysfunctional agencies. The US headlight standard from 1967 has never been updated to allow modern adaptive headlight designs despite at least two decades of requests from car manufacturers. Congress finally forced NHTSA to take action in 2021 with a timeline of two years, but they still aren't available because now the NHTSA is dragging their feet on testing. Meanwhile Ame…

> Congress finally forced NHTSA to take action in 2021 with a timeline of two years What's the method of forcing them to do it, though? Like, if it's not done in two years, what happens?

Congress put it in a bill. Not sure exactly what happens if they don't do anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if the car companies sued, because it seems like they've been asking for this for a long time.

H.R.3684 - Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act 117th Congress (2021-2022)

Rulemaking.--Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall issue a final rule amending Standard 108..[lots of text omitted]..to allow for the use on vehicles of adaptive driving beam headlamp systems.

There's an interesting article about it here. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/18/business/us-approves-smar...

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#127

Post by 8note »

alexpotato wrote: post #25
milkytron wrote: post #16

Earlier 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…

> I watched this last night, and it's always interesting to people in business talk about the cost of saving lives. My favorite example of this is the "children under 2 don't need their own airline seat". The idea was that if you required a separate seat, more people would drive. That in turn would lead to more fatalities as the fatality/mile in cars is so much higher than in planes. I would also point out that if so…

> I would also point out that if someone has purchased life insurance, they have explicitly made a decision about the cost of a life when they choose the amount of insurance they are willing to take on.

Isn't that the amount they can afford, rather than the value? Their wage is roughly irrelevant to their value

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#128

Post by 8note »

ethagknight wrote: post #69
mistercheph wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

The US basically ignores transport efficiency though. Otherwise, there's be shipping on boats within the US

Why not put the burden of compliance of the operators creating the risk?

Otherwise, the trucks will build themselves bigger, such that the improved aframes are no longer sufficient. Somebody walking around with a bomb doesn't make it reasonable for everyone else to have to bomb proof everything

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#129

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

kelnos wrote: post #107
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, this is a tired meme and it needs to die. This is a defeatist attitude that just gets in the way of any progress on improving driving culture. I really would prefer I can just trust the other driver.

I don't think that's feasible. Human nature just doesn't work that way. I think we could potentially get to a point where we can trust the other drivers more than we can now -- and that alone would be a laudable goal -- but I don't think it's reasonable to expect we'll ever get to a point where it's safe to place 100% trust that another driver on the road will always do the right thing all the time. So what we're lef…

> Human nature just doesn't work that way.

Citation needed. Look into Finnish driving culture; it seems quite reasonable to see it as nurture over nature. I believe that it would be difficult to effect such a change given the distance between different American subcultures but it’s been demonstrated that a society can actually choose to take this seriously.

> And sometimes those actually are your only choices.

This is the part that needs to die. I was still right when I chose to allow the other driver to cut me off; turns out I’m alive too. It’s not a dichotomy but treating it like it is suggests that the other driver was “right” because I yielded. They were not. I was right and I didn’t do anything dangerous.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#130

Post by elihu »

sn41 wrote: post #105

I saw the PBS documentary yesterday. If I am not mistaken, one of the accidents mentioned involved a Chevy Silverado [1]. If so, then the lobbyists are full of it. On the whole, I don't understand why the objection is there: are bars all that expensive? For comparison, here are Daimler trucks sold in India [2] - side protection is clearly visible. (Admittedly, they are high-end trucks as far as the Indian market is c…

I suspect there's an aerodynamic cost as well. Over time, that might be significantly more expensive than the manufacturing costs.

Weight is also an issue, though in this case at least the weight is low to the ground and would improve the trailer's stability.

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