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Trucks Are Killing Us

nytimes.com

221–230 of 248 posts

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#221
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends a lot on the staff quality. The value of a qualified waiter is much more than simply taking your order.

Perhaps for high-end places where the human touch is important. But for your run of the mill, fast food and cheap chain restaurants, hiring staff is a liability, if you are forced to hire the kind of staff that is willing to work for $8/hour. I've never decided to frequent a particular establishment because their staff was better than average, but there are a lot I won't go back to because they had awful, incompetent…

If you visit the Netherlands you may be interested in stopping at FEBO, which is a hybrid automat/fast food chain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEBO

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#222
post #11

Something semi-automated like speedlimit signs that radio out info which the truck receives and enforces seems possible.

Signs like those could be a godsend to teenagers out for a prank. Steal one from a road with a speed limit of 25, and put it on the interstate where the speed limit's 55, or the opposite, a speed limit of 55 in a 25 zone. I guess you could potentially add geofencing to the signs, but that means tacking up a roadsign becomes a lot more difficult as you suddenly need to spend the time to reprogram signs when you post t…

Theres no reason they have to be physical signs, just link it to the speed limit database companies like TomTom seem to have for their GPS units and use that. There's always the problem of keeping that up to date, but its no harder than the problems that would have to be solved for physical signs.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that rail seems ideal and much more economical and environmentally friendly, but is the system designed to handle consumer shipping with its demands for quick delivery with tight deadlines? (Which I'd argue constitutes a large portion of truck-based freight) How much longer does it take to load/unload a freight train versus a truck? How much slower is the train and how longer does it take to ship? (and how do…

If people are willing to pay weight fees that reflect the true cost of fixing the road damage, they can continue to use the trucks. But why should taxpayers pay for 2 day delivery instead of 3 day by rail?

I'm not suggesting they should. My alternate solution was a toll based system where the trucks would pay extra for roads that can withstand the extra weight.

You could just increase the weigh station fees, but then you'd have to make all the lanes be able to withstand the extra weight, and you wouldn't have the extra benefits of safety (a car doesn't stand a chance against a truck in an accident) and efficiency (trucks can't accelerate/decelerate as fast as cars, so they contribute more to traffic congestion).

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#224

Driving on I5 from Seattle to Portland is now a long line of semis, one after the other. Trucks, even loaded to the legal limit, cause 9,000 times as much fatigue damage to the road as a car (fatigue damage goes up as the cube of the weight). It's inefficient and environmentally absurd to use trucks that way. Railroad tracks parallel I5. The solution is to pick the container off the semi, put it on a railcar, do the…

I agree that rail seems ideal and much more economical and environmentally friendly, but is the system designed to handle consumer shipping with its demands for quick delivery with tight deadlines? (Which I'd argue constitutes a large portion of truck-based freight) How much longer does it take to load/unload a freight train versus a truck? How much slower is the train and how longer does it take to ship? (and how do…

> How much longer does it take to load/unload a freight train versus a truck?

To the extent that both use shipping containers, the process should be identical.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#225
post #217

> the N.T.S.B. recently reported that they were involved in one in eight of all fatal accidents and about one-quarter of all fatal accidents in work zones Involved or at fault? It seems like these stats are including accidents where trucks did not even contribute to the fatalities but were simply part of the collateral damage.

There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Moose are involved in around 80% of fatal vehicle-animal collisions in the state of Maine over a five year period[1]. Clearly, moose are a menace, and we need to dramatically invest in moose-diverting safety features on our roads!

Except... moose-vehicle collisions were only 15% of all animal-vehicle collisions. Even a cursory look at the physics of what happens in a moose-car collision explains why moose collisions are disproportionately fatal. Look at a moose, standing next to a typical compact-to-midsize car[2]. Now look at what happens when that compact-midsize car hits a moose[3]. The animal's legs get swept out by the hood/bumper of the vehicle, and the animal's heavy body crashes down through the windshield and the relatively flimsy roof of the vehicle, crushing the driver.

A similar thing happens with semi trucks. In many cases, the front bumper of a truck, and the rear bumper on the trailer, are higher off the ground than the hood or trunk of a car. So if a truck is involved in a rear-end collision with a car in front, as often as not the truck goes right over the top of the car, crushing the occupants of the car underneath.. Or if the car is rear-ending the truck, the hood and engine mass goes underneath the trailer, but the windshield and roof is sheared off by the steel bumper and trailer deck, along with the upper portions of the car's occupants.

I'm not sure you're going to make those physics much safer.

[1] http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5547a3.htm [2] http://boredomtherapy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/animal-... [3] http://cdn.wideopenspaces.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/las...

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#226
post #195

Driving on I5 from Seattle to Portland is now a long line of semis, one after the other. Trucks, even loaded to the legal limit, cause 9,000 times as much fatigue damage to the road as a car (fatigue damage goes up as the cube of the weight). It's inefficient and environmentally absurd to use trucks that way. Railroad tracks parallel I5. The solution is to pick the container off the semi, put it on a railcar, do the…

For trips over 150-600 miles (depending on the region), Rail is absolutely the way to go - the issue with rail in say a SEA to PDX (or for that matter a YVR to PDX) trip is the load/unload times at each end, which can add up to more than the total transit time for the freight movement.

Specialized cranes should make this last some seconds per container. http://www.konecranesusa.com/industries/intermodal-and-rail

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a sensible rule that is impossible to enforce.

Pilots have rules like that and they seem to work. But I suppose the massive regulation of airline safety makes it rather much easier to implement. But how are they enforcing the anti drug stuff? A relative is a trucker and I recall him telling me it wasn't worth screwing around with alertness meds (speed, modafinil, etc) due to risks of getting caught. (And some similar stuff for taking on passengers/hitchhikers?) S…

Yeah, you can monitor the vehicle, but to ensure people sleep you'd need to enforce video evidence at least.

Maybe people with no experience of insomnia just don't consider the possibility.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#228
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logs are kept, but the posts above are making the point that drivers should be required to sleep a certain number of hours of the past 24 hours. Logs do not help you with this, unless you are using a sleep tracking device.

If your legal standard is "no more than 10 hours driving in any continuous 24 hour period, and at least 9 hours of continuous rest period" you don't know for /sure/ that the driver will sleep in the 14 hours they're not driving, but why wouldn't he/she?

Not everyone is blessed with the capacity to sleep at will.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#229

Driving on I5 from Seattle to Portland is now a long line of semis, one after the other. Trucks, even loaded to the legal limit, cause 9,000 times as much fatigue damage to the road as a car (fatigue damage goes up as the cube of the weight). It's inefficient and environmentally absurd to use trucks that way. Railroad tracks parallel I5. The solution is to pick the container off the semi, put it on a railcar, do the…

A toll for semis on the highway could be a good start. It would at least let them pay for the damage they cause. Weigh stations are already in place which should make tolling pretty simple to enact and it could even be variable based on the size of the truck / weight of the load.

The motor-fuels tax is proportional to the usage (until we have electric trucks, anyway) The problem is 20-25% of it is being redirected into the general fund. That's money that could be used to repair crumbling roads and decaying bridges but is going to pork-barrel projects.

Re: Trucks Are Killing Us

#230
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that rail seems ideal and much more economical and environmentally friendly, but is the system designed to handle consumer shipping with its demands for quick delivery with tight deadlines? (Which I'd argue constitutes a large portion of truck-based freight) How much longer does it take to load/unload a freight train versus a truck? How much slower is the train and how longer does it take to ship? (and how do…

http://www.bgiworldwide.com/domestic-shipping/rail says "Typical transit time for coast-to-coast delivery is 7 to 10 days." Figuring 44 hours to drive across the country (NYC to SF), and a maximum of 11 hours long-haul driving per day, gives 4 days. That's for a single driver; a team with a sleeper can go further. Call it 2x faster with a truck. Amazon has fulfillment locations all around the US, so even with ground-…

The fulfillment locations also have to be supplied somehow.
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