I know there's way more cars than these trucks but all it takes is a small group of them driving together to cause a bottleneck, especially at interchanges. Also drivers don't want to drive among these large trucks so they move over and drive in the faster lanes causing congestion in those lanes as well.
Agree or disagree?
It wouldn't hurt traffic, but realize that commercial trucks pay a HUGE portion of our road upkeep. Banning them would likely result in either increased state/federal taxes to compensate, or a significant increase in gas taxes.
amateurs.(FTR-Rush hour here is more like 3 hours).
They just need to design better roads and traffic algorithms. That's the main problem. How many times have you been stopped, as well as many other cars, at a stop light just waiting, while NOBODY is going through an intersection? That shouldn't happen.
As for highway congestion, most of the fault lies with the design of the junctions and exits. They need to flow better.
The number of highway clusterf*cks that I've seen from trucks is ridiculously small; far smaller proportionally than the number of trucks on the road.
The problem isn't the semis, the problem is idiots in cars.
ZV
Yeah, those truckers aren't driving those things around to be in the way, do you have a solution on how to get all the goods in the trailers to their destinations? I actually would prefer there were more people on the road that can drive as well as most truckers. Weed out the people that drive "safe" vehicles in very unsafe ways and then worry about the "unsafe" trucks that are being controlled by much more competent drivers.
Unfortunately any time I get thinking about bigger problems like this, I arrive at the same conclusion that there are just too many on this planet that want too much.
For the most part, truckers are actually very good drivers, in my experience.
They just need to design better roads and traffic algorithms. That's the main problem. How many times have you been stopped, as well as many other cars, at a stop light just waiting, while NOBODY is going through an intersection? That shouldn't happen.
As for highway congestion, most of the fault lies with the design of the junctions and exits. They need to flow better.
I've seen plenty of accidents caused by cars while an accident with a semi causes a HUGE fuckup. I know better than to think we'll ever get rid of congestion without large investments in public transportation. Even then, people are douchebags.
I want to get rid of all the 18 wheelers that go interstate. I'd prefer more of our infrastructure be on rails with the trucks only dispersing the goods locally (say 100 miles or so).
I'd prefer 3 lane highways where semis were prohibited from using the leftmost lane, but that requires massive infrastructure upgrades.
They are also very selfish drivers and have no qualms about passing going up a mountain where neither truck can go above 50mph and one truck is geared such that it will never pass the other truck, but will instead get about halfway past the other before the other truck is going faster than it is...
I have never seen a semi driver be courteous to traffic. Nearly every time I drive on interstates, I see a long hill with two semis side by side, and a line of 10-20 cars behind them waiting for the one in the left lane to pass or give up passing.
That said, passenger vehicles do this as well, but get the picture more easily when you point out how rude they are being with their driving.
edit: any law targetting that type of behaviour would cover both passenger vehicles and semis, so it would be win win. It would be difficult to craft a law that covered that situation, while still allowing for left lane driving during periods of true congestion though. It would also be nearly impossible to enforce such a law.