Truckers Like This..

[dbuzman]

Quoth Captain Trips

Not to mention that Blas wasn't the one breaking the law. That truck was. (If in the U.S.) the speed limit on trucks is 55. Blas said this one was doing 70.

A friend of mine who just got her trucker's license last year pointed this out to me: her truck has a speed governor, no matter what she does she can't go over 55. (She is a company trucker, of course. Sounds like Blas' jerk was an independent.)

There is no national speed limit for trucks. Its up to the states just like it is for cars.

Some companies govern the trucks for fuel economy reasons.

[Captain Trips]

Quoth dbuzman

There is no national speed limit for trucks. Its up to the states just like it is for cars.

Some companies govern the trucks for fuel economy reasons.

I could have sworn it was national, but in hindsight I see you are right.

My friend's company may do it for that reason, too - since she is an interstate driver.

[EricKei]

Quoth Captain Trips

I could have sworn it was national, but in hindsight I see you are right.

Perhaps you were thinking of bridges and overpasses? Here, trucks of any stripe are restricted to lower speeds in those places and on certain residential roads that are near no-truck routes.

[PepperElf]

I personally tend to give them a lot of room to move these days. Before I got here I never really thought about them but my BF pointed out "hey they're just trying to work" and that it's easier for them to maintain speed than it is to slow down and speed back up, saves money for them too. (which is also why you'll see some highways pick up an extra lane on the right for "slow" traffic - that's usually for trucks cos they have to drop a gear to maintain momentum and they can't really keep up with the rest of traffic on big hills like that)

So these days when I see one with the blinker on trying to get in front of me... I usually fall back a little and turn my lights off and back on again. My BF explained that it's kinda "trucker code" for "go head". Most times when they see that, they make the lane change and then flash their lights a couple of times so the back lights blink at me - "trucker code" for "thank you".

It's because... they weren't changing lanes to fuck with me ... they were just trying to maintain speed to keep the gas usage down.


As for speed, I've never heard of a national limit. That would in fact be a traffic hazard since around here the highway limit it 70 and people normally drive 70-80. So someone driving at 55 could really cause an accident. Now granted some of them do poke along at 65 - 70 because of their mass but that's a bit easier to compensate for than say... someone driving 15mph below limit.

[Chromatix]

On this side of the pond, all large vehicles are limited to 55mph (or some equivalent in km/h) by law. This is simply because they are too big, heavy and potentally unstable to be safe at any higher speed.

For similar reasons, freight trains tend to have lower speed limits than passenger trains over here. Apparently in America, it is just as often the other way around.

[PepperElf]

Well with trains I can see that... Even at 5mph the mass of any train can do some damage. But on top of that, trains don't have to worry so much about whether or not their speed - or lack of it - impedes other traffic.

[dalesys]

Quoth Chromatix

On this side of the pond...

In Yourp a few hours at 90¹ kph is measured in countries. Here at 90² mph it's in counties!

¹90 kph ≈ 55 mph
²90 mph ≈ 145 kph

[Geek King]

Quoth PepperElf

As for speed, I've never heard of a national limit.

There was, at one point, a national speed limit of 55mph, later raised to 65mph, then done away with altogether on a national level. I don't think it varied for big rigs and heavy vehicles on the national level, though.

[Chromatix]

Quoth PepperElf

But on top of that, trains don't have to worry so much about whether or not their speed - or lack of it - impedes other traffic.

Actually, they do. Not so much the drivers, but the planners certainly.

An example I used elsewhere was to consider a two-track line (one track per direction) 20 miles long, say between two sections of four-track line. Passenger trains can (in theory) follow each other at 2-minute intervals at 120mph. Freight trains can follow each other at 5-minute intervals at 60mph. This is normal spec if the signals are about a mile apart.

Now consider if you mix passenger and freight traffic on that line. Say a passenger train goes first, immediately followed by a freight train (starting 2 minutes later). The passenger train will arrive after 10 minutes, the freight train 12 minutes later than that. The next train can't reasonably arrive until 5 minutes after *that*, so if it's a passenger train, it should aim to start a whole 17 minutes after the first passenger train left, in order to avoid being held up.

But you could have fitted 7 more passenger trains in between these two, if the freight train were not there. Railway planners therefore say that the freight train "consumes seven passenger paths".

A second freight train can of course start on minute 19, 17 minutes after the first freight, and will not be held up. But another 2 freight trains could have been fitted between them if the second passenger train were not there. So the passenger train, likewise, "consumes two freight paths".

Overall, the efficiency of a track with different speed trains on it is much lower than one where all the trains run at about the same speed. That's why railways are so often built with four tracks instead of two, so that fast traffic can have a line to itself, and so can slow traffic.

[PepperElf]

o yeah, i can see planning will take some serious thought. that's why trainwrecks are so horrendous.

if anything though the masters at planning are the japanese. you really can set your clock by the trains in japan.

but mainly i was thinking trains vs cars


actually my bf and i agreed on one thing... that it would be cool to have a train built in the middle of the local highway if it could be done.