They have many names Gigaliner, EuroCombi, EcoLiner and they are being touted by some as the way to bring under control the environmental costs of road freight transport. We beg to differ.
These monsters can be up to 25 meters long and weigh up to 60 tons. They are currently allowed on the roads in Finland and Sweden. There are also vehicle trials under way in Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. However these trials are not really creating the conditions under which they will have to work. Expert drivers, predefined routes, exact timetables; how will these trucks react under deadlines and improvised routes in the harsh realities of a cut throat logistics industry?
The ECF has produced a report on these larger trucks and how they relate specifically to the safety of the cyclist.
Please find a two page ECF summary here Megatrucks Safety Paper Summary
and the full report here Megatrucks Safety Paper
Joint Report with EAC European Automobile Club here EAC and ECF – Road safety and 96 53 EC
What the EU is doing?
The Commission has stated in its White Paper that it will revise to some extent the Weights and Dimensions Directive on lorries and trucks. There is currently a strong push for them to relax the rules on the size of lorries to accommodate at least 2 twenty-foot TEU containers instead of the current one.
What is the ECF doing?
The ECF will be advising that those amendments come in the shape of more aerodynamic vehicle and safer fronts and sides, rather than take the route of creating these monsters and we will work with the No-Mega Trucks Alliance against these vehicles (see also our section on Underrun Protection bars here).
The two major talking points are safety and Environment.
Safety
ECF have grave concerns concerning the safety of these trucks. Bends, junctions and roundabouts, where motorised transport does most damage to cyclists, would become more dangerous.
There will be many times when the wheels of the lorry not only take up all the space on the road but will often creep onto cycle lanes and the pavement. There could also be major disruption to our roads in terms of congestion with lorries getting stuck or taking time to clear bends and junctions; congestion is not good for safety.
Research by the German Highway Research Institute has shown that increased vehicle lengths will lead to greater accident risks because overtaking and clearing road junctions will take longer and that a higher gross vehicle weight will have a negative impact on the severity of accidents. Crash barriers were not designed for heavier vehicles or for the impact of articulated vehicles.
Environmental benefits
Surely in times of environmental and economic problems we all have to bite the bullet and accept a bit of discomfort, even if that discomfort comes in the shape and size of a 60 ton truck. The argument for these (new name) “eco-combi’s” is that they use less fuel to take bigger loads thereby reducing expenses and fuel consumption as well as reducing the amount of empty runs.
Unfortunately this is a typically short sighted view of reducing the environmental and economic of road transport. While there may well be reduced costs and initially less fuel consumption, this will eventually lead to lower costs for lorries and road freight and thereby aid the shift of transport from more environmentally friendly modes such as rail, inland waterway and even shipping, to the road and thereby increasing the amount of haulage on our roads; i.e. more mega trucks, more lorries, more fuel use. If the EU is serious about containing transport growth it will have to do better than mega trucks which will in the long term do the opposite. The ECF is convinced that modal shift, not only from cars to bikes, but also from road freight to rail and water, is essential to getting the polluting effects of transport under control.
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