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 Eighty-two percent of Americans oppose increasing the length of big trucks.20 Eighty percent of Americans agree that sharing the road with larger trucks will make driving harder.21 Many truck drivers are afraid to drive double or triple trailers because they are hard to control and stop. More than 80% of truck drivers agree with the statement that doubles and triples are less safe than single-trailer trucks.22 |
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At highway speeds, the back end of a triple nearly always swings back and forth across its lanes — even on a straight road with no wind.23 Drivers say that in an emergency they have virtually no control over a third trailer.24 When they have to make a sudden maneuver, a crack-the-whip effect produces a violent swinging that can lead to rollover and trailer separation. Also, very long combination trucks with long overhangs even present a hazard at low speeds when rounding short radius highway curves or street intersections because these big trucks often have to encroach into adjacent or opposing lanes of traffic to negotiate these roads and streets. And when a bigger, longer rig turns a corner, the rear of the trailer can swing out into other lanes of traffic.25
20 Lake Research Partners., 2008. http://www.trucksafety.org/CRASH_press_release_1208.php
21 Tarrance Group, April 1996.
22 AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, Transportation, Research, and Marketing, “A Study of Operating Practices of Extra-long Vehicles,” Washington, D.C., December 1990, p.48.
23 “An Operation Field Test of Long Combination Vehicles Using ABS and C-Dollies,” Vol. I Final Technical Report, UMTRI 95-94-1, November 1995, pp. 90-91, 93-95; see also California Department of Transportation, Longer Combination Vehicle Operation Test, March 1984, pp. iii and 24.
24 Infra note 14.
25 “Longer and/or Longer and Heavier Goods Vehicles . . .,” op. cit.