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Trapped Under Trucks

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Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#221

Post by kayfox »

toast0 wrote: post #45
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…

We don't have enough details from the article to determine fault in this particular collision. I'm not familiar with that particular highway, but there are a lot of US highways where (legal) prevailing speeds are 40 mph or higher and there are driveways from which unprotected left turns are permitted. I think including details specific collisions is probably a distraction. Regardless of fault, this type of collision…

Looks like the accident happened here: https://goo.gl/maps/9HPbr3D43EKgbgZ6A

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#222

Post by katbyte »

midasuni wrote: post #160
katbyte wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is cheaper or more efficient and green then shipping by rail. We used to have an amazing rail network in NA (eu still does) and we basically have letf it fall into ruin and become a shell of what would constitute a functioning railway. It literally has done everything possible to kill passenger rail and make shipping via rail painful / unreliable. If we had not trucking wouldn’t be the only option and we woul…

The US shifts the same order of magnitude of goods by train as trucks The EU shifts about 10 times by truck as by train Rail freight in the US is praiseworthy.

> Rail freight in the US is praiseworthy.

watch the video and get back to me on that statement.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#223

Post by kayfox »

concordDance wrote: post #166
noisy_boy wrote: post #85

> The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. > They said there’s not enough research to support a government mandate, which would impose huge costs on businesses that operate on thin profit margins. So thin that they can't afford $127 a truck; they are running a no profit charity out of the goodness of their heart and that pittance of an one-time amoun…

I would be immensely surprised if they ended up actually costing $127 in practice. I expect that's very much a best case scenario (lowest bidder estimate for unregulated side guards with no installation costs).

That $127 a trailer is the differences in cost and it was in 1980s dollars. So I would expect a retrofit to be whatever the cost of the Mansfield bars are on their own, plus labor, as it would cost today.

Fortunately the IIHS has been pushing trailer manufacturers to make the change, so newer trailers would not need a retrofit.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#224

Post by DropInIn »

hef19898 wrote: post #204
matsemann wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A driver is responsible for the condition of the vehicle they drive. You would refuse to drive a vehicle with faulty breaks. In the same vein, I think they should collectively refuse to trucks without proper security measures.

Brakes are mandatory, rails preventing people from ending up under the truck not it seems (in the US, in Europe they are). So, it is up to regulators to make the mandatory. And it is lobbyists preventing that, and those lobbyists are not working on behalf of truck drivers.

This protects Others while brakes protect the Self....

The reason they care about breaks and not this is because this doesn't protect them specifically and so they don't give a shit, because they're raging narcissists.... As I have a feeling someone "in this room" is as well...

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#225

Post by DropInIn »

jffry wrote: post #23
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…

How is prohibiting truck transport on Sunday good for other road users? You'd be eliminating 14% of hours in the week, which means a corresponding higher density of trucks on non-Sunday days

[flagged]

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#226

Post by tecleandor »

Freeaqingme wrote: post #177
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…

> are bars all that expensive? From the article: > The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. I'm inclined to think that 127 USD (even if the side rails were a little bit more expensive because they're larger) is not too expensive for a feature like this. Also, I think that in Europe these rails are already mandatory. At least the rear guard is require…

I think that $127 is for when then first tried to pass it in the 80s. But even after inflation, and price raises, and whatever calculations we do... That's a ridiculously cheap price for a security feature. That's not even the price for installing a bunch of airbags.

I'm not in the market (nor the region), but for a new semi-truck plus bed I guess you're going to expend north of $200K. A thousand or two in security features is absolutely nothing. So instead of a low percentage of vehicles expending a little money on security features, they want the rest of the world to buy way more expensive and ridiculously big cars? Upgrading a single vehicle to a SUV would be way more expensive than their upgrades.

Regular cars have all sorts of active and passive safety features for the people inside, and for pedestrians and other vehicles outside, and that's fine. I don't tell pedestrians to buy an armor if they want to be safe when I'm driving around.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#227

Post by olyjohn »

noisy_boy wrote: post #85

> The beefier, more robust rear guards would’ve cost an additional $127 each, according to industry estimates. > They said there’s not enough research to support a government mandate, which would impose huge costs on businesses that operate on thin profit margins. So thin that they can't afford $127 a truck; they are running a no profit charity out of the goodness of their heart and that pittance of an one-time amoun…

You can't even buy the steel to build these for $127. That figure is trash just like this whole scare article.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#228

Post by jiveturkey »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #67
jiveturkey wrote: post #56

This 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 th…

> Did you read the whole article?

I did. You are cherry picking the accidents where it's quite clear the victim did nothing wrong. There are other accidents described where I find it hard to draw that conclusion. There are only about 4-5 accidents described out of about 400 in 2021 (an undercount per the article).

Have you been on the road? It's very dangerous due to most drivers around you being absolutely awful and inattentive. At least in the USA which is the concern in this article. I swear, not a day goes by where someone either in front or behind me pulls off onto the shoulder to do a heavy braking, surprised that traffic in front is slowing. Whereas truck drivers IME tend to be the most attentive and good drivers. (Of course there are exceptions and the trucks are massive so they have an outsized result.) At least in california. So I'm hard pressed to believe that most of those 400+ annual accidents are the fault of the truck driver.

> we also shouldn’t allow known hazards on the road.

Agreed, and I said as much. Why the NHTSA is not acting on this is beyond my understanding. As well, I noted that I endorse AEB, even though it's a negative for me personally due to 100% false positive events in my own usage. AEB will fix far more hazards than trailer underride guards. Again, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do both.

This is why non-level crossings, armcos, botts dots, LED traffic signals, and so on are all great things. Sure an excellent, courteous and attentive driver doesn't need any of those. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have them, and I said as much re underride guards.

I think you are misreading my comment as victim blaming and reacting to that. That's not what I said.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#229

Post by AtlasBarfed »

The dumb thing is that making semis aerodynamic likely will encompass something that would make them safer for other vehicles. You need to fill in the space under the tractor. A fairing would save money and lives.

Re: Trapped Under Trucks

#230

Post by cornholio »

elihu wrote: post #77

> "The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association, a lobbying outfit representing semitrailer builders, had little desire to make safer rear guards. In correspondence with the department, the TTMA said it would be 'far more practical' to force Volkswagen and other companies making compact cars to produce larger vehicles that were less likely to slip beneath a truck." Of course.

> 'far more practical' to force Volkswagen and other companies making compact cars to produce larger vehicles

While being far more dangerous to children due to the low frontal visibility of American style trucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDH3FDfVQl0

The "huge car to overcompensate for a tiny brain" fad is growing in Europe and it's a travesty.

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