[Coco] Re: OT -- Texas and highway laws in general

[farna at att.net]

You have a valid point Richard, because most of our interstates are asphalt. But the other countries do have large trucks on the roads. Because of the greater distances we have over here, and the big clear roads between cities, the trucks are usually bigger. Korea uses a lot of four and five axle single unit trucks 30-35' long. I met a salesperson for Freightliner, of all things, during one of my plane trips. I mentioned the four and five axle trucks because they are pretty impressive, and why weren't they used over here. She stated they had investigated that design, but turns out it isn't as fuel efficient for long hauls or the way the trucking industry is structured over here. When you can drive a country coast to coast in three hours and full length in about eight, it's not so efficient to do things the way we do, haul eight hours with one trailer, go back to home base with another. The Koreans can usually go, unload, load, and go back with no problems. I remember plenty of the big Hino trucks in Japan too -- as big as any over here. Again, few tractor trailers, many large single unit trucks. The single units maneuver a little better too. They had two front axles -- neat watching them turn! Of course both front wheels have slightly different arcs, enough you can tell! Single wheels on both front axles, duals on two of the rear axles. When there was a third axle in the rear it usually had singles on it. 

The Korean interstates aren't chewed up because they are 100% concrete -- no asphalt. They are also all relatively new, the earliest were built in the mid 80s, not late 50s like ours. But you should see the loads on some of those trucks -- many appeared to be way overloaded! Traffic on most of the Korean peninsula is horrendous on major holidays. It normally took a little over na hour to get to Seoul from Osan AB. A friend and I went one Sunday morning with no problem, but getting back that night took nearly four hours! It had been a Korean national holiday, and everyone was returning home. Those roads carry more volume than most do over here. And I won't even start discussing Japan and traffic volume! It might take hundreds of cars to put the wear and tear one big rig puts on a road, but the volume is there... 

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 -------------- Original message ----------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 12:28:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Richard Ivey <rrivey at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Coco] Re: OT -- Texas and highway laws in general
To: coco at maltedmedia.com
Message-ID: <20060129202858.55657.qmail at web34712.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Yes, the left lane is "passing only", but the main reason, people tend to stay 
in the left lane, making it a "high-speed lane" is because of heavy 
trucks...18-wheelers, buses, etc.  They pretty much stay on the right lane.  
Anyone and everyone knows the left lane just flat-out provides a more smooth 
driving experience.  The heavy trucks keep that right line pretty chewed up.
Im sure Korea or Japan doesnt have big rigs flying around at 150 kph like we do 
here in the States.  Just an observation.