US truckies want to haul bigger loads

The transport industry in the USA is trying to catch up with something the rest of the world has been doing for many years. They have decided to to lobby hard to get an increase in the allowable GCM on the roads of the United States.

Nationally, the maximum mass allowable is 80,000 lb or just over 36 tonnes. The heaviest trucks given general access throughout the country are semis, consisting of a 6 x 4 prime mover and a tandem axle trailer.

Initially, the American trucking industry will be pushing for a limit of 100,000 lb, over 45 tonnes, on a six axle combination. Currently, trucks like this are up able to travel around on specified routes on state-by-state basis and are not allowed on the major interstate freeways used by the vast majority of US freight.

Hamstrung by the strength of the driver unions, with transport industry in the USA had been unable in the past and to get acceptance of more productive vehicles. However, with a combination of a severe driver shortage and fuel prices increasing exponentially, notwithstanding recent decreases in prices, more productive vehicles have become an imperative for an industry struggling to keep up with the current freight task on US roads.

How it has taken so long to reach this point remains a mystery to every other transport industry across the globe, for most operators the need to improved productivity has driven change in just about every first world country.

Even the, normally extremely regulated, European Union has made concessions to operators allowing more productive vehicles on the roads. This recent example, from Sweden, shows timber hauliers taking up ideas developed here in Australia to increase productivity without compromising safety.

This particular combination used for hauling logs in Sweden will look a little strange to Australian eyes, but the load on the prime mover will be possible because of the much higher front axle weights allowed in Europe.