[Hayek]

Think truckers do a good job manoeuvring their underpowered and overloaded vehicles on Indian roads.

About 15+ years ago, I did some work on the sector and was surprised to find that in most emerging markets, there was a Power to Weight requirement of 10 HP per tonne - viz a 40 tonne GVW tractor trailer needed a 400 HP prime mover. To this date, you see 4021s in India - viz half the power to weight. And with the presence of liftable axles, you very often have vehicles loaded beyond their design capacity. Just as we have made progress on emissions and on curbing overloading per axle, we also need to regulatorily move up on Power to Weight. The other challenge truckers face is the presence of slow two wheelers on highways - I certainly don’t blame them for avoiding the left lane where these pesky two wheelers would be weaving in and out. Where I blame truck drivers is when they try to overtake at next to zero relative velocity - we very often see two trucks moving at the same speed hogging three lanes - frankly, if you are slower than traffic behind you and can’t overtake in 3-4 seconds, you should drop back and let others pass. And you should certainly not move onto the right lane at 12 kmph to pass someone doing 10.

[stallmaster]

In my opinion, one unintended consequence of poorly maintained transport vehicles on Indian roads, thanks to issues like overloading, bad roads is that in the mind of regulators, diesel vehicles tend to be a usual suspects in pollution mitigating rules.

In theory, a well-maintained diesel vehicle shouldn't be a basket case in the rulebooks after a mere decade of service. But due to this image of black smoke belching unruly old trucks and Sumos in public minds, rules get made according to that only.

Other than that, the truckers are usually fine people. They know more about the country and its issues than a national politician. Their lives are unusually hard compared to the hours they put in and the wages they get. They usually have no life insurance, accidental insurance. It's terribly sad but I don't see the situation changing anytime sooner.

[shaheenazk]

Originally Posted by GTO

In fact, I will go a step further and say that trucks are the best driven vehicles on highways...far, far more well-mannered and disciplined than tourist buses, taxis and even private cars. As the quality of Indian highways has improved, so has the behaviour of Indian truckers. Of course, there are bad apples in every group, yet as a percentage, bad truckers are far less prominent than in other vehicle classes.

I agree that they are the ones who have the best road manners but still one thing I often find irritating is that they almost always drive on the right most lane.

[HornNotOkPlease]

Originally Posted by shaheenazk

Why do they almost always drive on the right most lane? It is such a bad habit.

Just give it a thought normal passenger cars take close to 10-20 sec to work up the gears and build up to cruising speeds on the highway after losing momentum, imagine doing that though out the day and multiply that time taken to do so by 3-4 times for a truck under load, that is the reason trucks have started to ply on the right lane of the highway so that they have to decelerate less as left lane will have more obstacles in the form of stupidly parked cars slow moving carts what not.

It is my observation trucks that ply on long distances are very well behaved and compassionate to smaller vehicles, they are ready to give way,follow proper signals and are predictable, it the local truck junta who does small distance trips are rude and unruly, they have compensations based on number of trips and have that local raja kind of mentality, to make things worse all the local authorities are already tipped off by the owners association for free pass so rules go for a toss

[yd_gli]

Truckers are the guardians of Indian highways. Their life, income and future depends on these highways. Most of us typing away on keyboards venture out on highways once a month at the most and usually for recreational purposes. These guys are on there 24x7 365 days a year with horribly outdated equipment, infrastructure and facilities. Majority of them are excellent drivers and well behaved on the roads.

Bus drivers.. Now this is a species that one must be worried about. They are the worst kind of trash that one can find on Indian highways especially the long distance private and state buses. They will harass and bully private cars and two wheelers at the first chance they get. They never yield and are one of the biggest hazards on highways. I have seen them team up and harass truckers as well. On a recent trip to Coorg, I was on my way back on the B'lore-Hassan highway. One lane was being relaid and was sectioned off with red plastic cones. A state transport bus for no reason decided to run over every single cone for at least 500mts and I saw him having a good laugh when I passed him. Scum.

[Stribog]

Originally Posted by Mustang Sammy

Having had the good fortune to have lived in and traveled to a few countries, here are some observations on the trucks plying on Indian roads compared to other countries, many of which have no doubt been highlighted in other threads on this forum:

1. Underpowered: Indian trucks are waaaaaaay underpowered and overloaded compared to other countries. This is not just the West, or developed Asian countries like Japan, Korea and (these days) China and Malaysia. Even Vietnam and Indonesia have more powerful big trucks than we do. Why can't Tata and Ashok Leyland provide more power to their vehicles? Is it the risk of reckless driving, tight budgets and penny-pinching by truck buyers, or something else? I can't imagine running these engines for extended periods under excessive loads is good for their fuel economy or lifetime. Not to mention how these slow trucks end up clogging all the lanes of highways, when you have a truck at 10kmph overtaking one at 5kmph, and a third one speeding (relatively) at 12kmph, taking up all the space on the highway.
Truck drivers have a hard enough job, and these kinds of vehicles just make it much harder.

2. Maintenance: Same as the 1st point. I have yet to see trucks in other countries that are as ill-maintained as those in India. Malfunctioning to non-existent tail lamps and indicators, clouds of black smoke belching from the exhaust, bald(ing) tires are some of the examples that come to mind.
One also often sees broken down trucks parked on the side of the road or in the left lane, with no lighting or hazard indicators to warn incoming traffic. This is a massive hazard, especially at night. I had a colleague and his taxi driver lose their life when their car rammed into such a truck in Bangalore, several years back.

3. Strange driving practices: Why do slow trucks stick to the right lane? Is it to be able to maintain a steady speed, or just poor training and lack of consideration for other drivers? To be fair, other vehicles also indulge in this behavior, just that trucks are the slowest of them all. Lack of indicators is another one, where they just veer into the adjacent lane without warning. Almost never saw these driving practices outside India.

Any other observations?

As someone who works for a large truck owning logistics company (my firm owns 1,400 + prime movers and 2,000+ trailers), I can definitely add some value to this thread.

1) Prime movers (the main truck that pulls the trailers) from Ashok Leyland or Tata or even Mahindra (Blazo line) offer highly competent products that are decently powered. Sure a MAN or Volvo offer better products but at 2-3x the cost.

2) The trucks you refer to are generically known as Taurus trucks, after the Ashok Leyland Taurus line (though all OEM's offer similar trucks, like Xerox is to photocopying, Taurus is to trucks). These are underpowered and cheaper than the afore mentioned prime movers in point 1

3) The biggest issue plaguing the Indian trucking market is one of fragmentation. Only about 10% of all fleet owners in India have a fleet size larger than 10 trucks. This essentially means the economies of scale don't kick in. In fact of the 90% the majority own 2-3 trucks at best.

The irony here though is, large fleet operators like my company can't actually compete with these low scale operators, why? Because they have literally zero overheads - even their parking is free, and once the truck's CAPEX is paid for, basically as long as fuel and toll costs are met, they are happy to accept any cargo at whatever cost.

Quality is not something these fly by night operators can even spell, which is why you get those decrepit trucks plying our highways.

4) They stick to the extreme right BECAUSE except in our few access controlled highways, the left is used by all manner of traffic, from mopeds to scooters to bikes loaded with 4 people or luggage. Left turns are risky as stupid two and three wheeler drives dart across the road at random times.

By sticking to the right, they give themselves more reaction time. The only way to fix this is to ban 2 / 3 wheelers on highways and if not possible, strictly enforce lane discipline for this group so the middle can then be used by trucks and buses.

[arjab]

In all my driving years on the highway till date, I have yet to come across an unfriendly or ill behaved truck driver. I'm sure there are a few rotten apples, but I have had the lucky fortune not to come across them.
A toot on the horn is enough for them to let my car pass. And when you are stuck in those awful traffic snarls on Indian highways, truckers will be the first one's to move their vehicles a bit to let your "private" car through.

The most kind gesture happened to us in 2017, on a bitterly cold December day, on the Delhi - Shimla highway.
For reasons unknown, there was a huge gridlock, before Zirakpur and not a single vehicle was moving anywhere. My daughter, then two years old, was cranking up and every effort to feed her milk met with banshee shrieks as the milk, for obvious reasons was stone cold.
One truck driver who was watching us for quite a while, told me to give him the kid's milk - he then took out his utensils from his truck, asked his "helper" to light a fire, warmed - up the milk in the "kadai" and gave it to us! As soon as Junior had the warm milk, she dropped off into a blissful snooze!
The sheer magnanimity of the gesture showed me that kindness & humanity was still alive and made its presence felt in the most unexpected of times


Slightly off topic, but one thing I have noticed: Have you guys ever seen a Indian truck driver wearing spectacles while driving? It can't be that all of them have 20-20 vision right? Would love to hear your thoughts.

[AVIS]

Originally Posted by Rahul Rao

Trucks are not under powered. They have the specified power or more than that. When you double the tonnage, power needed goes up by about 25% but torque needed to start doubles.
----------
In Australia triple trailer with 130 ton gross weight are having as low as 600 Bhp against 800-1000 Hp in yesteryear's, but start and acceleration upto 50-60 kph has improved, where as achieving 100 has fallen down to something like 4 Km 3 minutes.

Rahul

I refer to trucks in Tata Ultra or Prima range or Bharat Benz trucks with higher HP for comparable GVW trucks



Another scenario unique for Indian truckers is related to accidents. 'Hit and run' literally means the driver might jump out of the truck and run on foot!

This is, of course, to avoid the unique characteristic, of truckers getting a thrashing from the crowd right at the accident site.

[Raja Rakesh]

Indian Trucks are underpowered? Except the new ones most are old models and with low maintenance and overloading over the period of time actual hp and torque figures goes down. Also, I have observed trucks rarely rev their engines on highways unless it's absolutely needed. They maintain low revs and try to change less gear. I understand how frustrating it will be to change gears all the all day long.

High Manners: Trucks are the main movers within main land in most of the countries. Truckers prefer driving during night all over the world because roads will be more empty and they can cover more distance without much trouble. I prefer driving during night time because of these reason. Have driven in night covering 700-800 miles in 11-12 hours every 2 weeks in USA for work and some vacation driving along with many long trips during night in India, I have found truck drivers in India and USA have better highway/road manners than anyone else using the road. In single roads trucks coming from opposite side are the first ones to dim the light or give way unlike interstate buses or cars. Even during my current trip I am finding truck drivers giving hand signal or indicator to let me know when it is safe to overtake them. These are the predictable lot of drivers except a very few as incited by others.

Regarding slow overtaking, yes trucks take time to cross each other. Believe me even in USA most of the trucks running at ~70 mph with powerful Volvo and peterbilt prime movers, takes about 1-3 miles to overtake each other and sometimes it takes more time with road gradients or if either driver don't want let go as they have a narrow speed range over 70 mph o overtake. In India, truck speeds are low and different trucks have different load and engine capacity which makes overtaking more slow.

[shaheenazk]

Originally Posted by HornNotOkPlease

Just give it a thought normal passenger cars take close to 10-20 sec to work up the gears and build up to cruising speeds on the highway after losing momentum, imagine doing that though out the day and multiply that time taken to do so by 3-4 times for a truck under load, that is the reason trucks have started to ply on the right lane of the highway so that they have to decelerate less as left lane will have more obstacles in the form of stupidly parked cars slow moving carts what not.

According to Motor Vehicles Act, it is an offence to over take from the left and we are forced to do so. The right most lane is only supposed to be used for over taking.

[silverado]

Originally Posted by arjab

Slightly off topic, but one thing I have noticed: Have you guys ever seen a Indian truck driver wearing spectacles while driving? It can't be that all of them have 20-20 vision right? Would love to hear your thoughts.

Its a known fact that they dont get their vision checked.
They are a fraternity who deserve some respect from general public.

Very few Manufacturers think about Truck drivers. SuMo ( Sumant Moolgaonkar ) was one who decided to introduce Synchromesh gearboxes to make things easy for them.

Truckers have also been blamed for spread of HIV, and entire generations have been affected by it.

With highways getting better, trucks getting faster, GST implementation things are improving for them.

They are already in short supply due to all the points discussed in this thread and more.

[Sandy Damodaran]

I'd agree to most of these points, specially about truckers being amongst the more reliable and more importantly, predictable drivers, the thing that piques my curiosity is when a person carrying goods is so observant, those driving buses (state owned or private) are the exact opposite!

The kind of driving I've seen by the "Luxury" as well as regular inter state buses have been hair raising. As a matter of fact, I'd do anything to get a lot of space between me and a passenger bus, either by overtaking or by letting them take a good lead, specially on narrow roads.

[HornNotOkPlease]

Originally Posted by shaheenazk

According to Motor Vehicles Act, it is an offence to over take from the left and we are forced to do so. The right most lane is only supposed to be used for over taking.

I am in no way supporting the case of trucks hogging the right most lane just trying to give a practical explanation why this situation has come up, we cant really blame the truckers for this solely there are multiple factors responsible.

On a lighter note on highways we have an unique scenario, right hand driven vehicles following left hand driven road rules

[Raja Rakesh]

++ few points about slow moving trucks after my discussion with an older gentleman. I am not sure if these all are valid points so do feel free to chime in.

1. Most truck drivers are not owner-drivers in India. They get paid by truck owner for the number of days they spend on road unlike in developed countries like USA drivers get paid per mile driven plus incentives if any. More days means more money here

2. Driving at low rpms between torque range drivers try to save fuel. They can make few more bucks indirectly from owners hiding actual diesel consumed.

3. With all fools dancing around on highways, crossing roads without looking onto on coming traffic, even crossing the dividers which I encountered a lot of times, keeping slow speeds make it easy to stop or change lanes quickly with heavy loads. Truckers need more time to safely encounter any sudden surprises which we have a lot in our Indian Highways. Slow speeds give them some control to anticipate and react safely.

[landcruiser123]

Originally Posted by Mustang Sammy

1. Underpowered

I think trucks are underpowered as labour is cheap in India. Truckers aren't paid a lot and the market is just content with having them drive slow trucks rather than having them drive expensive high speed trucks and make them more productive.

2. Maintenance

Again, it's a cost trade off. Most owners/drivers try to do as little maintenance as possible to maximize profits.

You won't believe who is behind some truckers lose their lights - some mischievous children/young adults. I've a relative who teaches in government school in Karur, TN. She tells me that the hobby for many of the highschool kids is to steal lights, badges etc from trucks.

3. Strange driving practices: Why do slow trucks stick to the right lane?

Trucks probably stick to the rights lane as 2 & 3 wheelers can make their life hell in the (slow) left lane. But overall, trucks are pretty disciplined compared to the buses and taxis.