It makes sense from one perspective (larger vehicle more mass more momentum) but considering that the impact of a 30kph collision is not negligible, and moreover that it will indisputably cause traffic to bunch up, is it helping or hindering safety?
Well, we do have countless accidents involving trucks on a daily basis, and those accidents often do cause the traffic to bunch up. One of the highways I’m somewhat used to drive through, “Rodovia Fernão Dias” (MG-460), is very famous for accidents in this regard. The accidents frequently involve retreaded tires (“pneu remolde”) popping off the truck’s wheels, and the truck is often traveling way beyond 80km/h (if they were traveling below 80km/h, maybe the truck would be slightly more controllable when such a thing happened I guess)…
In practice, the speed limit does nothing (except in cases they’re caught by a speed camera, but people deliberately de-accelerate when getting close to a speed camera before speeding up again). If people were to respect the speed limits all the times, especially the truckers, maybe, just maybe, accidents would be less frequent. The ones hindering safety are often the truckers, however, I don’t really blame them; the transportation companies they’re working to often push surreal demands unto them (e.g. “you must take this cargo from Santos to Belo Horizonte in 12 hours”, a 670km trip that’d take a car 10h non-stop, depending on the conditions of Rodoanel and Fernão Dias); they often use stimulant drugs (“rebite”) to keep awake during insane days-long trips, and sometimes you can spot a truck zig-zagging and veering off to the roadside because the trucker fell asleep.
It makes sense from one perspective (larger vehicle more mass more momentum) but considering that the impact of a 30kph collision is not negligible, and moreover that it will indisputably cause traffic to bunch up, is it helping or hindering safety?
Well, we do have countless accidents involving trucks on a daily basis, and those accidents often do cause the traffic to bunch up. One of the highways I’m somewhat used to drive through, “Rodovia Fernão Dias” (MG-460), is very famous for accidents in this regard. The accidents frequently involve retreaded tires (“pneu remolde”) popping off the truck’s wheels, and the truck is often traveling way beyond 80km/h (if they were traveling below 80km/h, maybe the truck would be slightly more controllable when such a thing happened I guess)…
In practice, the speed limit does nothing (except in cases they’re caught by a speed camera, but people deliberately de-accelerate when getting close to a speed camera before speeding up again). If people were to respect the speed limits all the times, especially the truckers, maybe, just maybe, accidents would be less frequent. The ones hindering safety are often the truckers, however, I don’t really blame them; the transportation companies they’re working to often push surreal demands unto them (e.g. “you must take this cargo from Santos to Belo Horizonte in 12 hours”, a 670km trip that’d take a car 10h non-stop, depending on the conditions of Rodoanel and Fernão Dias); they often use stimulant drugs (“rebite”) to keep awake during insane days-long trips, and sometimes you can spot a truck zig-zagging and veering off to the roadside because the trucker fell asleep.
!onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone