by frog
The government thinks it might be a good idea to permit much bigger trucks on to our road. That seems scary when 23% of crashes on our roads involve trucks.There are some circumstances where you might need a truck to move goods about. Then there are circumstances where it just seems easier to stick stuff on a truck rather than develop an efficient effective rail and coastal shipping network.
The Ministry of Transport’s Surface Transport Costs and Charges Study shows that trucks only pay 56% of their costs while freight trains pay 82%. (Guess who pays the rest?) The same study concludes that the total annual environmental costs of rail equal $11.3 million while the total annual environmental cost for trucks is $492 million (of which light commercial vehicles account for $195 million). And, on the topic of roading it says:
Air pollution costs of $442 million per annum are partially paid for by the health system, while climate change costs are not paid for by anyone.
That’s a lot of money; just enough perhaps to support a far more comprehensive rail and coastal shipping network.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by frog on Mon, December 10th, 2007
Tags: coastal shipping, freight, rail, trains, transport, Trucks
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
And what about cyclists. Anyone who has ridden close beside a large truck and trailer unit already will be able to tell you that it is not the most exciting experience in the world.
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Yikes. They’re talking about bringing them in here in the UK and citing the environmental argument – bigger trucks = fewer trucks = less pollution. I’m not convinced but at least here we have honking great motorways (er, no pun intended). I’d hate to come across one of those things on a New Zealand road!
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>>(Guess who pays the rest?) Well let’s see now, one third is return on capital, the capital value being the value of the land occupied by the road, assessed at the same value as the land adjacent to the road. The value of that land is mainly due to the presence of the road, thus the road would have no capital value if it wasn’t a road. In fact the capital value is greater than the actual capital invested in roads by all levels of government since reliable records began in the 1860s. Thus one third of the rest isn’t paid by anyone.
The remaining two thirds is indirect costs, a substantial amount of which is borne by the health and welfare Votes. The STCC includes these indirect costs but excludes indirect payments to the Crown by road users through indirect taxes such as GST, FBT and PAYE. Those pay the remaining two-thirds even when the highest estimates of the costs is used instead of the mid-range estimate used by the STCC.
>>trucks only pay 56% of their costs while freight trains pay 82%. Actually the STCC says that on State Highways, being the part of the roading network that is actually in competition with freight trains, trucks pay 83% of their costs.
Jeanette states that “Trucks are four percent of the road fleet yet are involved in 23 percent of all crashes.” Transit says trucks account for as little as 3% of traffic on urban State Highways and double digit percentages on most rural State Highways, which is where most fatal crashes occur. Land Transport NZ says trucks are involved in 8% of all crashes and 23% of fatal crashes, of which truckies are responsible for just one-quarter, ie truckies cause 8% of fatal crashes. Ergo, the only trucks appear to be dangerous is because the Law of Conservation of Momentum makes the relative mass ratio critical for injury severity. However, at speeds above 70kmh an RMR of 5:1 is sufficient to produce a virtually 100% probability of death for front seat occupants of the smaller vehicle. Given that the average mass of a car is less than 2 tonnes it follows that the mass of the heavy vehicle only needs to be 10 tonnes, thus any greater mass can not increase the risk of death to front seat occupants although it could iincrease the risk of death for rear seat occupants.
>>There are some circumstances where you might need a truck to move goods about.
Yep, those circumstances are commonly known as Just In Time distribution systems.
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“Ergo, the only (reason) trucks appear to be dangerous is because the Law of Conservation of Momentum makes the relative mass ratio critical for injury severity.”
oh, trucks only appear to be more dangerous because they are more lethal & are killing more people…. thanks for clearing that up
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Andrew, It means when some drunken bum crosses the centreline in front of a truck its him who gets splattered, not some innocent family on their way to a picnic.
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Right now the number of trucks on the Southern Motorway in Auckland could be dramatically reduced if containers were moved by rail from the Port of Auckland to the inland port at Wiri. For about two years now the Port of Auckland, the ARC and the Government have been haggling about who should pay for the cost of reinforcing the area around the sidings at Wiri so that they will support the offloading of the containers. The cost is less than $10m.
It would be great if the Greens could follow up on this one.
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Andrew,
What do you mean by trucks are killing more people?
If you mean more than ever before then the fact is fewer car occupants were killed in collisions with trucks in the first half of this decade than in any half decade since records began in 1970. The next lowest half decades were when the car speed limit was reduced to 80kmh, and they were 10% deadlier than the current decade. The early 70s and late 90s were 25% deadlier, the late 80s and early 90s were 40% more lethal.
If you mean more lethal than anything else that you can crash into in the road environment then you are correct. But they are not the most lethal thing that can crash into you, off-roaders have that dubious honour. The fact that truckies clock up approx 12% of the km driven on our highways but only cause 8% of fatal crashes tells you to be more scared of oncoming cars than oncoming trucks.
By the end of the decade trees are likely to overtake trucks as the most lethal thing to drivers crash into when they lose control. In the 1970s trucks killed fives more people than trees, in the 1980s three times, in the 1990s twice as many, so far this decade only 50% more. The number of trucks has been growing but the number of roadside trees hasn’t. However two things trees have in common with trucks is that they have substantial mass and they are very rigid, which can halve the effectiveness of crumplezones. And trees are much narrower than trucks so they punch through crumple zones and side impact bars like a knife through butter.
Sweden isn’t jumping up and down because of the fact that trucks crashes increased from one-quarter of their road toll to one-third. They see this as proof that crumple zones and air bags are the main reason that car versus car crashes aren’t killing as many people as they used to. That is why they pioneered the use cable barriers to stop out of control car drivers from ending up under oncoming trucks. In fact Sweden’s Vision Zero road safety strategy starts with the admission that two-thirds of serious crashes are caused by ordinary drivers making ordinary mistakes. That’s a huge psychological difference. Blaming the road toll on bad drivers means most of us refuse to “own” the problem because we aren’t bad drivers, but Swedes do “own” the problem because they are ordinary drivers. But then, we think we’re clean and green.
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Cameron,
“Right now the number of trucks on the Southern Motorway in Auckland could be dramatically reduced if containers were moved by rail from the Port of Auckland to the inland port at Wiri. ”
Not really feasable until all the roading infastructure centred around Wiri is fully developed.
Currently Roscommon Road and Wiri Station Road sevice all points North, East, South, and West from Wiri.
The container traffic would be addition to the fuel tanker traffic from the Wiri Tank Farm. Not to mention the “B” trains leaving the distribution centres along side the inland port.
These roads are at bursting point already, moving containers from Wiri through a heavily congested Manukay CBD (and the busiest intersection in the country (Wiri Station and Great South Roads). is not condusive to energy savings.
Might clear the Southern Motorway a bit but load up the Manukau area where major road works for the SH20 loop are not due to finish till 2010.
Having massive “B” trains and container trucks using Mahia Road (a suburban street) to head South has seen it having to be resurfaced twice in five years already. Not efficient at all.
Just moving the problem to someplace else.
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kevyn says: “What do you mean by trucks are killing more people?”
since you already answered my post a full 14 hours before posting this question i guess it must have been eating at you!
i was merely referring to the statistics you provided in your own post:
“trucks are involved in 8% of all crashes and 23% of fatal crashes, … the only trucks appear to be dangerous is because the Law of Conservation of Momentum makes the relative mass ratio critical for injury severity”
but i accept the answer you have already given
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andrew, only because your post was sarcastic and illogical. That will eat at any analytical person.
Trees are involved in 5% of all crashes and 15% of all fatal crashes. Same ratio as trucks, for the same reasons. Same solution? Well, not if the solution is to reduce the number trees and trucks. But yes if it is the solution identified by the Swedes.
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hey it wasn’t either. it was witty & true!
you pointed out the statistics showing trucks were more lethal, & said the only reason trucks appear to be more dangerous is (& gave those statistics showing their lethality).
yes, you pointed out the statistics included situations where the other driver (not the truck driver) was at fault & pointed out if it were another car instead of the truck, the at-fault driver might have ended up killing an innocent family instead of themself, which is true, but it’s also true to point out that had it been another car instead of the truck, it would be more likely that the accident resulted in NO casualties.
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andrew, I said dangerous because I meant dangerous. I was responding to Frog’s use of the word scary. If you stay on your side of the road you have no reason to be scared of trucks because they are not a danger to you.
Danger (risk) and lethality are quite different things.
In fact your last point perfectly illustrates the difference between risk and lethality. The LTNZ stats confirm that a crash between a car and a truck is 6.5 times more likely to kill someone than a crash between two cars. The lethality is 6.5 times greater. The fact that there are nine cars for every truck on our highways means if you cross the centreline the risk of colliding with a car is nine times greater than the risk of colliding with a truck. The risk or danger of being killed in a multi-vehicle crash is the combination of lethality and risk of collision, and that risk of being killed is 35% less for a collision with a truck than with another car. Very simply, when travelling in a car you should be more scared of other cars than of trucks because you are 50% more likely to be killed by a car than by a truck.
It’s a bit more complicated to work out the risk of being killed by a truck driver or another car driver. But assuming it’s a simple matter of adding the fact that half of all car/car crashes are caused by one of the car drivers whereas only one quarter of car/truck crashes are caused by the truck driver then the answer is you are three times more likely to be killed by a car driver than by a truck driver. Actually, that also seems to mean that an average car driver is more likely to kill themselves than to be killed by either a truck driver or another car driver. Sobering thought.
I don’t know whether pedestrians and cyclists should also be more frightened of cars than trucks since the LTNZ stats aren’t that detailed.
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nice analysis, but don’t forget trucks are bigger than cars, so the chance of hitting a truck or a car can’t be compared merely by the relative numbers of each on the road. in fact on a road with nothing but cars, there will be mostly empty spaces for the veering driver to go through, but a truck occupies the length of maybe two cars plus the space between them… depending on truck size of course
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Andrew, Good point. They’re also wider which is a concern on our roads.
I think the safe following distance on the open road is at least 5 times longer than a big truck judging from the Mythbusters episode on tailgating to improve fuel economy. It all gets very complicated when you try to take into account the closing speed of 200kmh and how the angle of the veering affects the distance the car needs to travel to completely cross the other lane out of harms way.
Probably more important to focus on the nonsense claim that allowing bigger trucks will result in fewer trucks. That defies good business practice. You never waste a marketing opportunity.
I haven’t seen any details of how Labour’s proposal differs from Transit’s proposal from 2000. Hopefully there is still a requirement for longer and/or heavier trucks to use air suspension so that road damage will go down not up (per tonne/km). This was one of the major findings of the OECD’s D.I.V.I.N.E. project. But the government has refused to incorporate this into RUC’s to encourage the use of air suspension as recommended by the OECD. Thus Transit’s proposal was a clever way to preserve our highways. I really don’t have much faith in politicians being clever to our benefit. Their’s maybe, but any benefit to us always seems to be an unintended consequence.
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hmm, i didn’t see that episode of mythbusters, but i would assume any gains made by following in the slipstream would be more than balanced by having to constantly apply the brakes
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Mythbusters achieved a 40% increase in fuel efficiency, travelling ten feet behind a semi-trailer at 55mph. That’s a gap of 0.15 seconds, somewhat less than the two second rule. The fear and intense concentration at that sort of following distance means you’d spend more on psychiatrists than you would save at the pump.
http://mythbustersresults.com/episode79
It does suggest that if vehicles were controlled by radio linked electronic computers instead of biological computers then carbon emmissions could be cut by up to 40% and congestion could be reduced by up to 90% and there would be no more vehicle occupants killed or crippled.
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from the mythbusters site:
“To test this myth, the build team procured a car, a big rig, and a device that could measure a car’s fuel efficiency. They then drove the car behind a moving big rig at various distances ranging from 100 to 2 feet and measured the amount of fuel the car consumed. The Build Team discovered that the closer the car was to the big rig, the less drag is produced, thus the more fuel saved. At just ten feet, the car managed to increase its fuel efficiency by 40%. Drafting at two feet was slightly lower than the ten foot distance, mainly because Grant had to keep working the car pedal to maintain distance from the truck. However, that did not dispute the fact that drafting actually can increase your car’s fuel efficiency. However, the Build Team has warned that drafting is incredibly dangerous because the truck driver may not able to see you and you may not be able to react in time if the truck were to make a sudden stop.”
that’s a pretty astounding saving in fuel, but i’m a bit mystified what a “device that could measure fuel efficiency” is & why it was used. why didn’t they just measure the amount of fuel consumed?
furthermore, it doesn’t seem to have addressed the issue i mentioned – that of constantly having to apply the brakes. i’m guessing they did their experiment in “ideal” conditions – a flat, deserted strip of road at a constant speed?
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I can’t remember exactly what their “fuel efficiency” device was but essentially all it did was measure the amount of fuel consumed during each draughting experiment, then a laptop converted the data into mpg.
And yes, it was a flat, deserted strip of road at a constant speed. A simulation of draughting on an interstate highway. Since these highways don’t have steep gradiants or tight curves, aerodynamic drag is far more important to fuel economy than the weight of the car is. Very much the opposite of what is true on New Zealand highways.
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