Banning Big Rigs In Left Lane

[maplesyrup]

The City of North Vancouver is deciding tonite whether or not to ban big trucks from using the left lane. I hope they decide to go ahead with this idea as it will lead to slower trucks on the roads, and as a result less accidents.

For way too long the trucking industry has been been bullying the travelling public on the roads with their big vehicles tying up traffic, and it is time to put a stop to it.

I also think big trucks should be severely restricted as to when and where they can travel on city streets.

[August1991]

I have always liked the Italian practice of never, absolutely never, passing in the right lane.

In Italy, fast drivers will pull up very close behind doddlers in the left lane, flash their high beams, and wait until the slow driver in front moves to the right lane.

IME, truck drivers are the type to respect such a rule - once established, and without need for State sanction.

[maplesyrup]

What truck drivers do, and why I am in favour of this no left lane rule for trucks, is pull out to pass another truck and completely block both lanes of traffic. I have seen this way too often and the travelling public is inconvenienced.

Trucks need to be restricted to the right lane unless they are turning left.

I agree about not passing on the right but that is another issue.

[ceemes]

MS, more and more you are making me think you are a complete and utter raving loon.....

Ban big rigs from the Highways? Brilliant....and how pray tell do you expect to get goods to our mills, shops, hospitals and schools.....or our goods to port?

Bullying? My god man, have you any idea how foolish that is? The trucking industry pays more then its fair share in taxes and tolls, tax and tolls that go into building and maintaining the very highways you would deny them the use of.

Truckers are for the most part very pofessional, dedicated to safety. Trouble is, the average joe blow car driver are not. The majority of accidents between trucks and cars can be attributed to errors and mistakes made by the car driver.

[August1991]

What truck drivers do, and why I am in favour of this no left lane rule for trucks, is pull out to pass another truck and completely block both lanes of traffic.

So, a 10-wheeler must follow in the right lane behind a local dump truck going at 70 km/h and never pass?

I'd be interested to see stats on cars in right lanes hit by trucks coming from a left lane.

I have seen frequently in Canada doddling cars in the left lane with trucks finally passing them in the right lane.

[caesar]

I think for the most part most semi drivers are good and careful drivers. A semi with a lighter load or empty will pass a fully loaded rig. so what. Most of the traffic problems are by cars doddling in the left land instead of moving over. In cases of an accident a trucker is more likely to come to your aid than a regular driver.

[maplesyrup]

MS, more and more you are making me think you are a complete and utter raving loon.....

Pitiful useless comments from someone who has no substance to their arguments, so has to resort to personal putdowns. How sad!

The citizens of the country pay for the roads and have always paid for the road system. The road system is highly subsidized by all Canadians. It is a sop to the transportation industry through their secret lobbyists working in the dark corridors of power in Ottawa and the provinces. Please check your facts before you start blurting out nonsense.

I suppose the people of North Vancouver and their municipal representatives who are debating the issue tonite are all nuts as well, eh!

[caesar]

Trucks are limited to which streets they can use, etc within the city limits. As for the highways; they are considering allowing commercial trucks to use the HOV lanes. I think the big problem is more with gravel trucks that do not come up to the standards as do the big rigs. They often are involved in accidents and found to be not up to standards mechanically.

[August1991]

It is a sop to the transportation industry through their secret lobbyists working in the dark corridors of power in Ottawa and the provinces.

The same lobbyists who pay for Canadian flags in Quebec, who charter buses to Montreal when required and who sign cheques for the LPC - all paid for with "taxpayer" money.

The NDP wants the same, but open and public.

So, who will get more money?

The Liberals secretly or the NDP openly?

[maplesyrup]

The reality is Canadians arew going to have to cut back on trucking - the environment cannot handle it.

We would be a lot better off using local produce, eating what we grow close to home as much as possible. And using locally made products, much more than we do.

[August1991]

Maple Syrup:

We would be a lot better off using local produce, eating what we grow close to home as much as possible. And using locally made products, much more than we do.

Khmer Rouge:

The ideology of the Khmer Rouge combined an extreme, somewhat revised form of Maoism with the anti-colonialist ideas of the European Left, which its leaders had acquired during their education in French universities in the 1950s.

Wikipedia

[maplesyrup]

Interestingly enough the folks in North Vancouver are considering quality of life over profits. If the fascists want to call them commies so be it, and quite frankly who cares.

[August1991]

OK. I live in Montreal.

1. Maple Syrup, do you really live in BC?

2. Maple Syrup, do you rent or own?

3. Maple Syrup, if you own, what is the market value of your property?

MS, your credibility is in question.

[maplesyrup]

OK. I live in Montreal.

1. Maple Syrup, do you really live in BC?

2. Maple Syrup, do you rent or own?

3. Maple Syrup, if you own, what is the market value of your property?

MS, your credibility is in question.

August1991....talking about credibility why were you banned at Rabble?

[playfullfellow]

Whats the matter MS, some big ol mean trucker cut you off or something? Maybe a trucker was a disappointing date at one time or another and you now hate truckers. All I have to say is, you have no clue what it takes to be a trucker. You have no idea what a trucker has to pay to make a living. So until you spend some time working in the trucking industry, quit acting like you know something about this issue. Truckers can turn around and say they should have priority on the road because they bring commodities and food staples to the general public in a safe, efficient manner. As for buying only local goods, well, good idea but it wont work. Look at Vancouver, they is no way in hell that, as an example, the farmers in the Fraser Valley can produce enough food for all of Vancouver. What about all of the neat stuff you can find in China town stores, this would no longer be around under your ideas.

So anyways, get a job driving a truck for a month, then get back to me about this latest brain fart you have had. If you still feel the same way, then we can debate this on a logical level.

[ceemes]

MS, more and more you are making me think you are a complete and utter raving loon.....

Pitiful useless comments from someone who has no substance to their arguments, so has to resort to personal putdowns. How sad!

The citizens of the country pay for the roads and have always paid for the road system. The road system is highly subsidized by all Canadians. It is a sop to the transportation industry through their secret lobbyists working in the dark corridors of power in Ottawa and the provinces. Please check your facts before you start blurting out nonsense.

I suppose the people of North Vancouver and their municipal representatives who are debating the issue tonite are all nuts as well, eh!

Son,

I make my living in the trucking industry, have done so for many a year both as driver and as management. And I can say with all honesty, without trucks and trucking, this country or any other country would come to a rapid and grinding halt.

Everything, and I do mean everything from the most important commodity to the most meaningless dodad travels by truck sometime along its trip down the distribution chain.

Truckers and trucking companies pay more then your average joe blow car driver in the way of road taxes, fuel taxes and what have you. The roads and highways of our nation are the arteries of the country, trucks and truckers are the blood cells that carry the goods that life depends on.

And we are not just talking profits here, coz lord knows its damned hard to turn a decent profit in the trucking industry at the best of times, but the very nessecities of life. Without trucks and trucking, we would soon be back in the stoneage.

If you really want to stop the carnage on our highways, improve the overall ecological situation, then look to replacing the biggest polluter going and the biggest cause of accidents on the road....the automobile commuter.....demand rapid transit that actually goes where it is needed and when it is needed....you can replace 40 plus cars with just one bus you know.

[KrustyKidd]

Trucks need to be restricted to the right lane unless they are turning left.

Anybody care to back that statement up with a 10% rise in everything they spend? Also, care to back it up with a 15% decrease in indutrial productivity and subsequent job losses?

While we are on it, explain why people can't car pol, leave home five minutes earlier for work, let trucks that are on a downgrade getting speed for an upgrade to pass a slower truck ra[idly out so they can make that quick pass. They don't, they actually speed up so the truck cannot pass on the coast and susequently, the truck looses inertia and has to pass at a lower speed and block traffic. See, it goes two ways. Very enlightening from the cab of a rig vice a Hugo.

Just wondering, I live in a small town and most of us live withing a mile of where we work. The commute is two minutes. WTF are people doing with their lives living fifty or so miles of cross town traffic from where they work? Then complaining about trucks instead of their own idiocy. Shoot, I'd be looking for a new job or a new house rather than bitching about a guy in a truck. Or petitioning the government for some reliable transit.

Last, wondering, with wall to wall rigs of every size bumper to bumper trying to keep position (we do not like to be behind an unpredictable car if you didn't know that) how do you plan on making all those really safe exits while you dart in and out of the rigs weighing 130 thousand pounds figuring they can stop on a dime and such? Are they supposed to be mind readers.

Some stats for those who think they own the road.

According to ATA, passenger-car drivers are responsible for up to 75% of all car-truck crashes. This underscores the importance of working with the highway community and educating the public on sharing the road with commercial vehicles.

[Shakeyhands]

Ceemes, Logic would follow that we can replace a hell of a lot of trucks with one train.... The bat swings both ways..

and August1991, why were you banned from the other forum?

[Hugo]

Anybody care to back that statement up with a 10% rise in everything they spend? Also, care to back it up with a 15% decrease in indutrial productivity and subsequent job losses?

I'm sure this has been thought of. Doubtless MS will advocate price controls to prevent the rise in prices associated with this increased cost of transportation. Of course, these price caps will drive many companies out of business, and government will have to subsidize or nationalize them to ensure that needed consumer goods continue to be available. These costs will be borne by higher taxes, thus creating the effect whereby prices remain fixed and wages drop, creating a fall in real income.

The rich will be able to afford these rises a little better than the poor. Single parents and other low-income folks will be hard-hit and their standard of living will drop noticeably. Of course, the lesser demand for consumer goods created by depressed real incomes will also cause many of them to become unemployed. Doubtless the government will create programmes to fix this, which will cost even more tax dollars, and the cycle will repeat itself while the ranks of the unemployed swell and swell.

The government will raise the inflation rate to pay for all of these increased costs it is now bearing. Initially, this will lessen the problem, and then prices and wages will adjust to inflation and compensate for it, and all the gains will be undone unless the government creates further inflation. The rate of inflation will continue to rise until the dollar loses half of its value and more, further depressing real incomes and further stagnating the economy through fear and uncertainty over future prospects.

But hey, it's all worth it if we can save just one life from those careless truckers. Setting in motion a chain of events that will reduce millions to misery is neither here nor there.

demand rapid transit that actually goes where it is needed and when it is needed

The reason why there isn't such mass transit is because nobody demands it. It's impractical for most people. I have three sons and my usual grocery run results in my loading up my trunk with 60-80 lbs. of food. Are you suggesting that I try to use the bus service, in winter, with three small children and 60 lbs. of groceries? What are you, a sadist?

Interestingly enough the folks in North Vancouver are considering quality of life over profits.

Probably because nobody has explained basic economics to them and they don't realise that reducing profits also means reducing quality of life - less jobs, less money, less consumer goods, lower quality food, more cramped housing, etc.

We would be a lot better off using local produce, eating what we grow close to home as much as possible.

I'm curious, MS, to know how much food you think is grown in the Greater Toronto Area. It takes 3.25 acres to produce enough food to feed one person for a year. There are about 2.5 million people living in Toronto proper, who require 8.1 million acres of farmland. Toronto is about 158,400 acres in size. Do the math.

I believe there are about 750,000 acres of farmland in the Greater Toronto Area. Perhaps MS will tell us how, without trucks, the produce of 750,000 acres of GTA farmland and 7.35 million acres of other Canadian and international farmland is supposed to be moved into Toronto. Perhaps he will suggest trains. I hope, then, that he has a solution for moving produce from railheads to grocery stores. Possibly MS will solve the unemployment problem by hiring people to move the produce on their backs. Of course, the massive rise in food prices will mean that most low and middle-income people won't be able to afford to eat anymore. Oh well, such is socialism - lofty goals that impoverish the people they want to help. Reading through the NDP platform, I was amazed at how many measures they were advocating to increase poverty and soak the poor.

[maplesyrup]

Some of you you folks are all getting carried away, don't you think? All that was suggested was that trucks be banned from the left or fast lanes, as they are too dangerous to be traveling at excessive speeds. Actually all vehicles should be traveling in the right lanes anyways except to pass, and trucks should be restricted to the slower lanes for safety reasons. No big deal and hardly a complication for trucks. And all the truck drivers should unionize themselves if they are unhappy with their working conditions.

[Hugo]

I think, MS, that you were posting based upon ignorance and without thinking the ramifications of your proposal through. I'm sorry you think that actually trying to see what the consequences of an action would be is "getting carried away", and if you seriously think that this is a reasonable way to behave I invite you to be spontaneous and take a walk on an airport runway wearing a blindfold, try to fly off a cliff or some other act the consequences of which you wouldn't consider lest you get "carried away."

[fellowtraveller]

I also think big trucks should be severely restricted as to when and where they can travel on city streets.

They already are everywhere I've lived in Canada.

I blame Brian Mulroney for trucks in the left lane.

[ceemes]

Ceemes, Logic would follow that we can replace a hell of a lot of trucks with one train.... The bat swings both ways..

It already has......its called intermodal transportation........where truck trailers are placed on rail flat cars for the greater part of their journey across the country..

Problem is, rail lines are static, you just can't move them from point to point at a whim........even in Europe which has an extensive rail system and intermodal capabilities, they still need heavy trucks to move goods and commodities to their final distribution sites....be it the local corner grocer or the giant box store sitting at the edge of town.

As I said before, damn near every commodity we use, be it a critical necessity or a useless dodad travels by truck somewhere along its trip down the supply/distribution chain.

[maplesyrup]

So far I have not heard one valid argument against the suggestion that trucks be restricted to the right lane. It is a safety issue, as well as as a traffic flow issue. And it is a quality of life issue for our daily commuters.

Another part of thre problem which has not even been discussed is the size of the trucks. They are much too big for most of our roads.

[Hugo]

I would like to hear one valid argument as to why it is even reasonable. MS has offered us no evidence or studies to show that this would save lives or reduce traffic density.

Trucks are indeed heavier and take longer to brake than cars. This is true at all speeds. The solution is perhaps for car drivers to be cautious around trucks, allow plenty of room and make sure the trucker can see you (i.e. you have to be able to see his cab windows or his mirrors), rather than cutting them off and dallying in their blind spots as I see idiots doing all the time. Just the other day, I watched someone evidently rather tired of life merge behind me and force the truck that was following me to brake sharply and swerve. Smart move. I think the statistics bear out this irresponsibility. In 2003, the Dept. of Transportation in the US found that 6% of truckers in fatal accidents had illegal blood-alcohol levels against 33% of car drivers.

I think we have heard arguments as to why this proposal is wrongheaded anyway. Krusty has brought up the problem that restricting trucks to the left lane means that anyone joining or leaving the freeway is going to have to dodge trucks - or make trucks dodge them. Trucks also vary in their own speeds and a fully laden dump truck moving at 70km/h is going to cause a massive tail-back unless all other vehicles, not just cars but faster-moving trucks, can pass it.