America's trucking system is annoying and dangerous

[yjleesvrr]

I spend a lot of time riding and driving on the road. With the unpredictability of air travel in the Northeast, I prefer ground transportation for its flexibility. What this translates to is of course having to cover ground on the interstate system. The highways I traverse the most are I-81, I-95, and I-78. Of these, I-81 has the most tractor-trailer traffic. In the past 15 years, the number of semis on the road seems to have gone up by an order of magnitude.

By and large, most truckers do a good job of hauling their load. But like any job there is a minority of drivers who shouldn't be operating vehicles that weight up to 42 tons on public roads. The most dangerous are of course those that go 80 mph, 90, or more. I once followed a trucker doing 98 mph down a mountain road just north of Lexington, VA on I-81. I've also been in the midst of a flock of truckers keeping an 80 mph clip on I-78 in western NJ heading toward New York City. And there have been several spectacular wrecks on the Capitol Beltway over the years involving semis - especially in Maryland where the Beltway is curvier.

The most annoying truckers are of course those who saddle the passing lane for miles on end. When they finally waddle over to the right, they then give their rigs the throttle and speed up 10 - 15 mph faster than they were going while sitting in the passing lane. This is most irritating because you then have to speed well in excess of what a cop would be willing to forgive or risk getting stuck again behind the trucker who naturally will get back in the passing lane and slow down.

Finally, as a holder of a commercial drivers license (CDL) myself who drove a bus part time for a decade (first as a college student, then for a number of years for fun), I know that drivers of large vehicles are told to keep a 4 second following distance between yourself and the vehicle in front of you. Most truckers don't even allow the 2 seconds that drivers of cars and motorcycles are supposed to keep.

The trucking industry in America has lobbied Congress well, and given that uneducated Americans can no longer work in factories they can only look to driving trucks to make a decent wage. So railroads have all but shrunk and you now see some impossibly large and/or heavy objects being hauled down the interstate instead of on rails.

I'm reminded of the Romans not building labor-saving devices for the sake of having their slaves not run out of work. Why not build trains that require a hundred men to operate and reduce the number of semis that ply the same roads families use?

[Ves]

Multiple times I've come up on truckers that will swerve into the passing lane to avoid something on the shoulder, like a pulled over car, and nearly wipe me off the road.. in my car. They do it without warning or signals.

And I hate the moving storms they kick up when it's wet out... and the turbulence they cause on the highways. They block your view of the road. They tear up the roads. They tailgate.

It's annoying. They should have their own roads.

[Biff's R]

Yong,
There has been more of a push toward using rail to ship freight in the last several years. The problem currently is that ht erail system is crowded, too. The new thing is the development of Intermodal facilities. They are newer more efficient rail transfer yards. There is currently one under construction in our area near Rickenbacker Airport. It ties together truck train and plane transportation.

[JCsman]

Hmmmmm... I'm afraid I will make this post way too long. I work for the Federal Highway Administration and my wife is the head of the Alabama Division of the Office of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. So I'll make gross points in the interest of, relative brevity....

So, some quick - or not so quick - points:
Yep, there are some bad truckers out there. And we all hate to see them "on our tail". On the other hand we've all been in relatively dense traffic. I find that if I provide a safe cushion between me and the car in front it becomes an invitation to have folk pull around me. Sometimes to the point of causing me to slow down. Now imagine being in a vehicle where you cannot accelerate as easily as the great mass of vehicles.

Some firms are really behind safety. They hate to see the outlaws too. But are frustrated by the competative advantage of the cheaters. Technology can help. But all changes take lots of time and have both advocates and opponents - both sides with lawyers.

Example? I've followed the effort to limit hours of service - to cut back on drowsy truckers. Sounds like a no brainer, right. It's been a nightmare. Hey, we spaced our terminals based on the old rules, now we can't reach from one to the other in the allowed time. Hey, congestion in the cities are killing us, we are getting fewer miles per allowed run time and now you're cutting back. Hey, the rules say I have to stop dead at a set time even if I'm 20 minutes from home/the trerminal, etc. So I have to stop short to have a place to park.

Seperate truck routes. Under serious consideration. BUT, with todays environmental (my field for several years) rules, we'd NEVER be able to build the Interstate system. New facilities are being studied and built but it takes YEARS. And costs are astronomical. And, despite what we think about gas tax, it isn't covering the load. (At present rate the Federal fund system goes broke in 2009).

Case in point in Alabama. We completed the primary environmental document for what is called Corridor X, a new Interstate standard road in Alabama from the Mississippi line to Birmingham. The studies took about 6 years - with no lawsuits. Then (multiple) projects to be designed, land acquired and then built. We've been at the buy and build stage for 20+ years! That is with our elected officials sending us something like $100 million in earmarked (pork?) for most of those years just for that road. There are several major projects under study, or in the early stages in Alabama. I could list eight or so with total estimated costs of $20 billion. And the entire (non-pork) Federal share for Alabama is in the $600 million per year range for ALL highway needs. Do the math guys, my grandchildren won't drive on many of these roads.

Use of rail. Rail was the most heavily subsidized industry I can imagine. Check out their land holdings, especially the checkerboard gift from the government from the westward ho days. Not relevant? Oh I think so. Many of these guys make more off the ongoing proceeds from those lands than they do from hauling.

More to the point, trains are increadibly efficient at massive movement of single items (unit trains) - especially non-perishable. For example a coal hauler to a major power plant. Single point of pick up, single point of delivery.

For, e.g. WalMart delivery from a port to multiple stores - not so much. On time delivery is, in most cases, just not feasible except by truck. etc, etc, etc.

Can trains be used more efficiently? You bet. Biff's right. Look at the relatively new container shipments. Can they replace a substantial percentage of trucks? Not IMHO.

[iowabeakster]

Maybe we need to get the commuters off of the freeways.



That's the price we pay for our lifestyles.

[JCsman]

Maybe we need to get the commuters off of the freeways.

You laugh....but this is one of the problems faced by the Interstate system. The number of interchanges in the urban areas has climbed dramatically. And the I system, originally meant for the longer trips, is increasingly used for trips entirely local in scope.

It has contributed greatly with the failures of the inner cites, urban sprawl and congestion problems for the interstate travellers.

Too late to lock that barn door (although I wish we'd limit new interchanges better than we have been doing).

[yjleesvrr]

Very true. Our definition of "metro area" has literally grown over the decades. Did you know that people commute into D.C. from counties in West Virginia?!? So northeast West VA is now considered part of the DC metro area!

My concern still focuses on safety. I don't care what time pressures you're under. Safety should be your #1 priority when you're operating a vehicle that weighs up to 84,000 lbs.

You have no business driving such a vehicle as if you're in a Honda Civic. When I drove the bus, I kept the 4 sec. following distance lest somebody saw me tailgating and reported me to the transit office. In a college town, students in cars took advantage of the gap I left in front of me all the time. We also had governers that prevented us from going above 62 mph. Why not install governers that limit semis to 78 mph? So what if somebody in a car or even another semi gets in front of you. Deal with it. It's part of your job. Don't tail gate people within five feet of their bumper.

No matter how much truckers feel entitled to the use of the road (which is evident with some stickers I see on the back of trailers that talk about how America would shut down without semis), you still shouldn't cut people off and go slow in the left lane. Follow the rules of the road or people like me get pissed off enough to write Congress, or otherwise contact local governments to outlaw the use of all but the main roads for semis to use. In the end, I know that the average trucker isn't going to have the discipline to follow every detail of the laws on the books. Heck, if they were that conscientious, they'd probably would have gone to college and gotten an education. But this demographic undercurrent is part of the problem.

[rdsmith3]

Yong

Last week I had to drive on I-78 to I-81 to I-70 to I-86 (?) from northern NJ out to near Cumberland MD. I had the pleasure of driving in the rain the whole time. Now I was in a rather large GMC Yukon XL, but I still felt pushed and squeezed by the trucks, and the spray is incredibly dangerous.

But there are bad drivers of all types of vehicles. The most dangerous situation I encountered was a motorcycle rider on I-78 in western NJ doing about 45 mph in the rain in the middle lane with minimal lighting. A car was behind him with his flashers on. I don't know if he knew the motorcyclist or was just a good samaritan. However, his lighting was not that great, either. So there were two vehicles in the middle lane in bad visibility conditions and they are both doing well under the speed limit. It almost caused a serious pile-up.

[yjleesvrr]

True Bob. There are a lot of bad drivers period. It's just that the consequences of a cager or motorcyclist doing something stupid is generally less than a trucker doing the same. It comes down to physics.

More power begets more responsibility. When a semi gets into an accident on, say, I-81, the wreck usually shuts down an entire direction of the interstate. And it's taken out more than one or two cars with it. There was an accident in Baltimore about three years ago where a tanker truck fell of a bridge onto a highway below. The resulting conflagration destroyed another semi and several cars. It shut down southbound I-95 (the busiest highway in the country) for nearly a day. One would think that if you're driving a tanker truck on a curvy bridge that perhaps you should slow down. It's not unusual to see a trucker negotiating a curve at a clip that is more appropriate for a car with its lower center of gravity.

It's inevitable that truckers will have accidents, just like the rest of us. And they have a tough job. But IMO I don't see them being as careful as they should. The desire to make money by hauling large loads over long distances over long hours is too enticing for them.

And wait 'til the Mexican truckers add themselves to the mix. I'll start taking flying lessons and buy an airplane to avoid the highways and confine my motorcycle riding in the mountains.

[danstl]

Down here in Florida, it's the dump trucks. I think the problem is they are paid by the load which encourages craziness. It is an all too infrequent occurence for one to roll and shutdown I75 for a long time.
When that happens, this place goes crazy (Ft Myers/Naples) because there are few other options for north/south travel.

[Sunbeemer]

All too true, Yong! A gasoline tanker-truck took an interchange ramp too fast here about 10:30 last night and lost control of his rig, and his life. It's a sleeper curve on an overpass thirty-foot high that he must not have been familiar with, and it's a left exit from a four lane highway, so he may have assumed (like that bus driver did in Atlanta last month) that the Interstate just kept going, not realizing the curve was going to tighten up before it merged into another four lane highway. Anyway, his tanker tipped over and split open dumping several thousand gallons of burning gasoline onto a municipal maintenance-vehicle storage-facility underneath the overpass (~ 1/2 million dollars worth of equipment was destroyed, but thankfully there were no houses nearby). There were three huge explosions before sheets of burning gasoline started running off the overpass in multiple firefalls. It did make for some spectacular news footage, but it was much more amazing in reality. The driver of that truck was the only fatality, and the overpass will be closed for months due to the extensive damage from the fire. And this happened just before the city is expecting 100,000 Indy fans to attend the Honda Gran Prix this weekend! Traffic is going to be a mess around here for a quite while...because this driver was going to fast and wasn't paying attention. And the tanker drivers are supposed to be the best of the truckers.

[Sunbeemer]

BTW, here's a link to that front page story running in the St. Pete Times today if you want to check it out at http://www.sptimes.com/2007/03/29/Tampa ... leas.shtml

[yjleesvrr]

Wow, reminds me of pictures I see of Iraq. There's a lot of chemical (potential) energy in many hazzardous materials, especially gasoline!

[Sunbeemer]

Sure enough! It turns out the rig was bound for Sarasota, so it appears the driver was hanging in the left hand (passing) lane which suddenly turns into an off-ramp, just like what happened in the bus crash that hurt those college ball players last month in Atlanta. And the cargo in this tanker was diesel fuel, which has even more chemical energy than gasoline, but doesn't ignite as easily due its lower flash point, which apparently was exceeded in this fiery crash.