Today’s countdown count is brought to you by 18 as in an 18 Wheeler. 18 Wheeler is “trucker” lingo for a tractor trailer truck. They got the name from the fact that there are, wait for it, 18 wheels on the normal US version of a tractor trailer. The wheels work out this way, two wheels in the front of the tractor to steer plus eight driven wheels on the tractor plus 8 wheels on the trailer. The trucks have 5 axels and all but the front axle have double sets of wheels to spread the load out on the road surface. For the record, they call you a “four wheeler” (I’ll let you figure that one out) The average truck is a standard shift with somewhere between 9 and 18 forward gears and as many as 3 reverse gears (essential when backing up or down a hill). The engines average about 300-500 horsepower and many are very advanced turbo diesel configurations averaging as high as 12 miles per gallon while towing 80,000 pounds. The average is somewhere around 8 miles per gallon. Two years ago, Bennett and I did a science project on tractor trailer trucks looking for ways to increase their aerodynamic efficiency. As I recall, we were able to decrease drag by about 18% by adding skirts on the trailer, a gap filler between the tractor and the trailer and rounding off the front of the tractor and the rear of the trailer. Some of these techniques are already becoming common but others are still in development. With all the “aero gear” in place, a modern truck might be able to achieve as much as 16 mpg. Most tractor trailer rigs are configured as a “fifth wheel”. The “fifth wheel” is a circle of well greased steel with a vee cut in it mounted horizontally on the bed of the tractor. The trailer has a “pintle” on the nose of the trailer that slides into the vee cut in the “fifth wheel” locking the trailer and tractor together. A normal trailer is between 28 and 60 feet, many you see on the road are hauling standard 40 foot CONEX (container express) boxes and have a 10 foot tongue making the trailer 50 feet long. (CONEXs were developed by the military to speed our logistical efforts – you’d recognize one by the corrugated sides, I live in a 20 foot CONEX box) Why are trucks import to you and I? Simple, combined with trains, they’re the life blood of our economy. Truckers are the spokes to our rail hubs. It isn’t possible to move goods everywhere by ship or train – trucks fill the void. There are an estimated 15,000,000 cargo trucks in the US and about 2,300,000 of them are “18 Wheelers”. There’s somewhere around 3,500,000 licensed big rig drivers in the US. Fed Ex and UPS have the largest fleets but that number includes all trucks. Schneider Trucks (ugly orange tractor trailer combinations) is the largest “18 Wheeler Company” followed by Rodeway, Yellow and J.B.Hunt. The average truck has a return on investment of 4.8 cents on the dollar, fuel fluctuations can alter that number dramatically. Last year, the trucking industry earned about 225 billion dollars and paid the states about 21 billion dollars in taxes and fees for using the roads. AAA offers these safety tips when driving in the vicinity of truckers Trucks create wind gusts. Keep both hands on the wheel when you pass a truck or when a truck passes you. (Passing one on a motorcycle is always a thrill) Leave plenty of room between you and a truck when stopping on a hill. Trucks may roll back as the driver takes his or her foot off the brake. Don’t speed up when a truck is passing you. Instead, stay to the right and slow down slightly. Let the truck pass you. This will give the truck driver room to pass safely and get you out of the truck’s blind spot faster. If a truck driver is signaling to change lanes, give the driver space. An average truck changing lanes at highway speeds needs an eight-second gap or 700 feet – the length of 2 1/2 football fields. And on that note, here’s an Alabama favorite that just happens to go along with this story nicely youtube/watch?v=fYtJIFVxQXY
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 13:22:28 +0000
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