[antz.bin]

Voted: Yes, Absolutely.

Here is my rationale.

Commoners think Trucks are overloaded, transporters counter with the fact that they are in fact not. Let's give the transporters the benefit of doubt.

Truckers mention that people weave in and out while overtaking. People on regular cars and bikes need to do that because *underpowered* trucks and buses drive 20-40 kmph *below* the speed limit. The rest of us want to drive 5-30 kmph *above* the speed limit. That causes a mismatch of 25-70kmph between the speed that a car/2-wheeler driver wants to drive/ride at and what the CVs are going at. They have no choice but to weave in and out of the CV traffic.

A 100cc commuter and a Lorry deliver their best mileage at 40-60 kmph. It would be logical that they share the leftmost lane. No excuses. If you lose too much momentum and cannot get back up to speed, then well, thats your problem and your problem alone. What? Can't brake fast enough? Well maybe those brakes need upgrades as well! It is happening because your truck was *underpowered* and didn't get the powerful enough brakes that were actually required. Should have chosen something that accelerates and brakes faster than a Hero Splendor / Honda Activa / Derestricted Hero Lectro Bicycle OR stayed within city limits. Just because you are driving a 25 ton GVW vehicle does not give you the right to block the smooth flow of traffic. All of us have paid our road tax/toll, we all have the same rights.

Had these CVs been driving at/around the speed limit, there is no need for cars and bikes to weave in/out of the way and overtake these vehicles. We all would have a peaceful drive and If someone still insist on weaving in and out, they will be breaking the speed limit and will be promptly and easily caught by a nearby traffic interceptor.

If you drive *at* the speed limit, nobody stops you from driving in the right lane. If you can't keep up the speed, then you really shouldn't be in the right lane.

All of this brings us back to the topic of fuel efficiency. I have never driven at 40-60kmph on a National Highway out of choice for any length of time. I don't know what my fuel economy at those speeds is. But I very well know that if I drive at 80-90 kmph constantly, my Figo diesel returns 110% of ARAI Rated FE *with AC*. That is good enough fuel economy for anyone. If a truck's fuel economy drops at highway speeds far below the ARAI rated value, maybe the truck isn't highway worthy and should have stayed in the city. It really should be able to keep up with the rest of the traffic AT LEAST to be called highway worthy.

The only way to fix this is regulation w.r.t. minimum stipulated power to weight ratio based on vehicle GVW. That will ensure a level playing field for everyone, Fast and efficient goods transit coupled with safer and less stress inducing roads.

[AjayJoshuaN]

Unless the truck is made a very strong exoskeleton and frame, etc can be removed so that loading area comes much lower for lower center of gravity, I don't think it would be a wise option to increase truck speed.
The tyres are huge, the frame is above that and the load sits on top of that which increases the CG a lot.
If the loading area can be lowered, e g. inbetween the wheels by using the body itself, then it would be possible to increase the speed further. These are my thoughts.

[vredesbyrd]

I believe we should look at the comfort and safety of the driver and the cleaner before talking about power.
Air-conditioning along with parking sensors or cameras would help these guys and make life easier.

Power? Let's just day that it is sufficient and more power for commercial vehicles would just lead to more fatalities and accidents.

We don't want trucks to be driven like cretas ans crystas, do we?

[Amrik Singh]

It is going to be never ending race. You increase the Power of the Trucks and expect them to increase their speed. The gain in Power would instead go towards hauling more load. From 30 years old, 3 Ton Trucks, the engines power has increased many fold, multi axles, Trailers etc. but not their speed. Although the road infrastructure has widened, more roads have come up with better facilities but so has the number of vehicles gone up. This imbalance may never end.

[dipdawiz]

Voted for need more insight. According to me, more powerful truck is fine, but before that we need to first solve the problems on highways, not bring the workaround. Workarounds becomes norms and it cause more harm than good in long run. Mainly some laws and strict enforcement of some rules would solve all problem of trucks blocking the road to low mileage per day.

1. Strict driving license issuance
2. No bike, auto, cycle etc on left lane so that trucks can drive through that lane without shifting lanes every minute
3. No overloading of trucks
4. Educate commercial and professional drivers (trucks or cabs all), have some mandatory refresher every quarter, which would bring discipline.

The question is - if it is possible (netas have will) to enforce these sort of reforms in country like India.

[edunata]

Trucks in India are not underpowered. Actually, they are overloaded all the time. To make more profit on a trip, truckers always overload. This practice damages the trucks as well as the road surface.

[jigar1791@gmail]

Originally Posted by dipdawiz

Workarounds becomes norms and it cause more harm than good in long run.

I completely agree with your point on implementing myopic workarounds will bring respite in the short term, but it'll do a collective harm in the long run.
Case in point - Implementation of -no honking' rule in Mumbai. One can simply not drive without a warning honk to oncoming/careless/idotic bikers/autos if you wish to drive with utmost calm and intend to reach your destination on time (or with a minimal delay)

However,

No bike, auto, cycle etc on left lane so that trucks can drive through that lane without shifting lanes every minute

This may sound too wishful to be implemented, but it just cannot be done in India. Our NHs pass through almost every single village/smaller town en-route. There are bikers/autos/tractors who need short-distance travel from 1 village to other. They ought to join the main highway on the left-most lane, and 3 kms ahead, position themselves in the right-most lane to take a right-turn at the median opening.

No overloading of trucks

Again, with the illogical increase in the toll-charges in the last decade combined with the OpEx needs (Diesel, man-power, servicing), truckers cannot make a living IF they don't over-load. I agree, I'm being cynical, but, it's better to earn 100/- extra, bribe 50/- en-route and take home 50/- more than they should to make some money OR atleast, make their ends meet!

Educate commercial and professional drivers (trucks or cabs all), have some mandatory refresher every quarter, which would bring discipline

1 dreads to visit any government department UNLESS they're forced to! And the bucket of drivers (keeping in mind the sample under discussion) we're considering to be given periodic refresher courses will have to pay for it. They are anyway living on meagre incomes plus a majority of them being migrant workforce, setting up such quarterly refresher sessions seem difficult to implement.

The question is - if it is possible (netas have will) to enforce these sort of reforms in country like India.

Again, to sum it up - even if our netas have the will, practical on-ground implementation looks difficult with multiple difficulties that can be foreseen even before a proposal can be filed

[dipdawiz]

Originally Posted by jigar1791@gmail

...
Again, to sum it up - even if our netas have the will, practical on-ground implementation looks difficult with multiple difficulties that can be foreseen even before a proposal can be filed

Well, I understand your point. But complexity or practicality could not be the excuse here. With "Will" comes money and money brings the "Way". All of the points I told could be implemented -

Like for overloading check, it's not by human interaction, by using technology. We have implemented extensive network of FASTAG. If I am not wrong some toll booths even have way to weigh the vehicle and shows that in display. So this can be mandatory for all lanes of toll booth. Charge higher in every toll for overloaded trucks. However I am not sure (or no idea) if a truck driver overloads his truck to make his ends meet. I thought overloading is more of shipping company's foul play to use lesser carrying capacity to get more business without caring for law. And a driver make use of the situation.

Also with will of neta, we have to do land acquisition for service roads and high shoulders to stop local traffic to get into highways. In fact I have seen many stretch of NH in south already have this (not saying its not there in North, haven't travelled there much). And some NH getting converted to expressway is already a start.

For refresher courses, it would be us tax payers money, also could be shipping/cab companies money. This too have to be technology driven not by Govt officials interventions. We loose so much of our tax money for unwanted things, this way it may be used in something useful.

So yes at the end we may have to take some burden by paying more indirect tax money; but it is not that, they cannot be implemented (or too complex to even propose) if govt wants to - at least for the national highways like NH 44, 48, 16 (and similar) connecting two important cities to begin with; then build on that. And eventually a powerful truck can ply better with that infra in place.

So these look like a long long way to solve some problems from root, however as I told, I do not have all the info or expertise to say if having a more powerful truck would solve the highway woes we face for trucks (without much side effects).

[ritedhawan]

Voted NO. The trucks that ply our national highways are adequately powered to haul the factory specified load. Its overloading which is the perennial malpractice that continues unabated, that is the biggest problem.

I am unwilling to believe that 'Overloading' of trucks on Indian highways is 'off the charts'. On the contrary it continues unabated.

There are some consequences of this malpractice that are there for all to see, on Indian highways , if looked closely:

(1) Consider a newly laid highway road, constructed with bare minimum standards one could expect from those who had been contracted to do the job. If they exceed expectations then that's great . Anyways, when its open to public traffic. Prior to its opening, a certain time period is estimated after which its repair becomes a necessity. Lets assume 10 months from the day it was opened for public. Barely half of that time period is elapsed and you would find that repeatedly you come across sections of the roads where the layers are kind of overlapping, if one were to drive the vehicle over them. It would seem as if the left front-rear tire went over a slight bump whilst the right front and left didn't and vice-versa. How did these undulations on the road surface came into being that you would repeatedly come across on our major highways. We cannot possibly blame cars or for that matter seldom overloaded highway buses! The deterioration came into being due to overloaded trucks plying on the highways. Its like a metal worker hammering on the metal to make it malleable. That's the kind of effect these overloading trucks do to those highways roads. We may be right to a certain extent if we blame those contractors who have been employed to do the job of constructing roads. Who may cut corners in order to fulfill their obligation. But you cannot deny the fact that the deterioration of roads problem becomes acute thanks to the overloaded trucks plying on those roads. I haven't yet factored in the rains which are there to cause deterioration of the roads.

(2) I have come across a peculiar specimen, if one were allowed to use that word for the deformity associated with a exterior shape of a truck whose deformity I will attempt to set forth in detail to the best of my abilities. One fine day , as usual on my drive on NH1 (Highway to Hell, reason for this title: it used to be the Grant Trunk road and as far as I know it issues out to Pakistan or Hell; or may be it doesn't then I am mistaken, then correct me wrong). Anyways, coming back to the peculiar specimen , that peculiar truck 20 meters ahead and if one were to draw an imaginary line from the front left side mirror of the truck to its rear , you would expect a straight line if the truck were bearing down the highway on a straight road and no overtaking. Yet, it wasn't straight! the rear seemed to be drifting to the right while the front stayed its course. It seemed that the engine is not only doing the job of keeping the truck in motion but is trying to compensate the drag associated with the rear deformity. How did this monstrosity came into being!!? Surely it can't be true that the buyer bought the truck and ignored this deformity or a manufacturer would be callous enough to push it down the throat of a dealer for him to sell it! I think the reason behind the deformity is 'Overloading' , and that too practiced repeatedly. You find the same on some of the DTC buses plying on Delhi roads which seem to outsiders as the bus is about to become lopsided or going to fall on one side as the weight on one side is greater than the other , therefore unbalanced. Repeated overloading of such a truck would inevitably cause a permanent damage to the truck and thus take the deformity in its stride!

An overloaded truck is not merely bearing down additional weight on the rear axle way past its specified tonnage. To move such a truck into motion and to continue doing so would stretch the limits of each and every component of that truck, whether those components are part of the engine, braking …etc. Add to the fact that the drivers are overworked and let go of sleep in order to reach their destination. Looks like a recipe for disaster and yet they keep it together. Not to mention the additional fuel expense incurred for that journey. The trucks that ply our national highways are adequately powered , overloading is the problem.

One wonders , what amount of profit or incentive overloading brings to the owners of such trucks that they are willing to evade the above stated facts.

There has been a mention of trucks driving on the far right near the central median instead of on the far left. The reason for the same could be in order to avoid wrong side tractors, cyclists or some vehicle trying to join the highway and who is least bothered about incoming highway traffic. Coming across such trucks unwilling to leave the far right lane, the car has to overtake from wrong side if the truck is unwilling to budge from the far right lane, albeit with correct estimation of road ahead. I wish the truckers would choose the middle lane instead of the far right lane, if they disdain the far left so much. Driving on the middle lane and in case they come across a scary situation which they cant out break. Then they have the choice to either overtake from left or right lane depending upon the availability and their judgement.

Those situations in which the trucks are hogging all the lanes and ambling at their own pace much to the acute mortification of the car drivers behind them. In this situation you would know prior to approaching these trucks from far away that they are not going to clear any lane by the time you approach them and you can figure out that at least one of them has that sufficient relative speed which may enable that truck to surpass the other trucks, then align your car behind that truck which is going to surpass the others, albeit maintaining sufficient distance. Nevertheless, its possible that by the time to do that ,that specific truck may slow down and then the other trucks are able to surpass and clear space for cars to move ahead.

Indian trucks need:

- Air conditioning that cannot be switched off
- Better driver's seat with full range of adjustments
- Automatic transmission (AMT)
- More power/torque & stronger brakes
- Some sort of cargo load limiter that that cuts off the engine beyond limit

Agree to the above except (Automatic transmission (AMT)
- More power/torque) . The rate at which the number of trucks continue to overload they will kill the AMT. The trucks have enough (power/torque) , its overloading, that's the problem.

Besides the point, there was this series shown by Discovery Channel few years ago, If I remember correctly aptly named 'IRT: Worlds toughest trucker : India' (Correct me If I'm wrong here). That had 3-4 American\Canadian truckers including one women by the name of Lisa Kelly. They picked up some TATA 1616 trucks bearing UP number plates--seemed they were picked up from Ghaziabad as per the number plates--and drove from plains to the Himalayas. In their innumerable attempts to bear with the unruly traffic, the one sided conversations that they had with their co-drivers and the whole of conversation pretty much ending with cursing, complaining about the bad driving habits of car, bus drivers all around them which according to their first world nation standards were incorrigible! If we kept all that aside, even when they came across situations where they were asked to drive overloaded trucks. They drew the line and didn't relent.

[100Kmphormore]

No way would I give more power for our trucks. If anything, they should be strictly policed to be in the left lane. Truck drivers should be more mindful of following the rules and observe their mirrors before they change lanes or make turns. It is tough for long multi axle trucks, the comparative smaller TN/AP trucks should follow the rules. These “underpowered” trucks are mostly because they are overloaded. The small Tata 407s\sand tippers itself are capable of doing 80+, if they aren’t overloaded. We have to consider the safety aspect too, in case they get into an accident and give them better brakes.

[IshaanIan]

I am shocked to see the number of BHPians voting against more power

To those who feel that with more power comes more speed which they suppose is dangerous: that is a very rudimentary form of thinking as there are a multitude of factors at play here; better acceleration affords them the ability to brake and slow down for certain scenarios since it does not take much effort to pick the pace up again also better acceleration usually forces manufacturers to improve the brakes again affording the driver the luxury of shedding and gaining speed at will rather than forcing them to carry speed which once attained feels so precious because of how tough it is to shed and gain. Since we are not talking about supercar levels of performance or even sports car levels of performance, I don't think a bump in power to weight ratio is going to lead to more reckless drivers or else we ought to call ourselves Nanoians and not BHPians

To those who feel that increasing the power-to-weight ratio will encourage more overloading: that is interesting and something which I haven't taken into account. However here's a possibly beneficial scenario; what if they began overloading the trucks to such dangerous extents that even the general public (not us educated folk) could observe the ill-effects and that encouraged law-makers to actually enforce strict rules and procedures on loading that could swiftly get passed considering the general public sentiment might be in agreement if they were to observe the effects of even more dangerous overloading on ever improving highways.

[venkyhere]

Originally Posted by maddy42

Root cause:
Our trucks are underpowered for the job on hand.

Let me explain:
Tata 4825 specs - 6.7Lts - 6 cylinder making 250HP and 950NM of torque with a payload of 38000kg and mileage of 3.5kmpl

In comparison - Class 8 semi Diesel engine has better torque and hauling power. 14.8liter, 6 cylinder, upto 560HP and 1850lbs and regularly passed 1 million miles and are meant to run non stop. It is able to haul 80000 pounds which is roughly the same load.

This is just the engine spec. What about the gearbox ? A much shorter ratio-ed gearbox on the indian truck can get the load pulled, but at a much slower speed. Whilst American Semi's have to maintain higher speeds, which probably means they have a much longer ratio-ed gearbox.
I am just playing devil's advocate and shooting in thin air. But shorter gear ratios with the less powerful truck and longer gear ratios with the more powerful truck, ties up nicely to the fact that both can pull the same load (38000kg / 80000pounds) , only that one of them will be much slower.

What we really need to compare is the torque at the wheels. Because the same Tata & Leyland trucks pull cargo up the himalayas in Leh/Ladakh. What if their "slowness" is designed into the vehicle via a short ratio-ed gearbox, to overcome the power deficit from legacy manufactured engines (really old tech from Britain) ??

Of course, overloading, poor maintenance, condition of roads causing permanent damage to the chassis, etc are all separate topics. I am only trying to question the criteria for comparison - it should not just be limited to engine specification alone.

[theabstractmind]

The average levels of education available to the drivers and respect for life in India is way below what we have in the Western countries.

The law enforcement in India again only exploits the helpless and lets go the privileged.

The amount of space available to build roads wide and safe enough for more powerful trucks is not enough. On one hand we have people complaining about badly designed highways where doing 100kmph in a modern car is risky. Forget about those monsters called trucks.

Therefore, let things remain as they are until:

1. A better education and licensing system is put into place to educate the drivers in general, and truck drivers in specific, to practice safe and efficient driving is in place.

2. A good enforcement system is in place to make sure 1 happens.

3. A good administration is in place which can take care of 1, 2, and 4.

4. Excellent roads which can ve built at low environmental and human cost.

[Livnletcarsliv]

I voted for NO.
While almost all of the views are already discussed here, here is my 2 cents.

1. The problem is multi-dimensional and so should the solution be.
2. Whatever is the tonnage spec of the truck/brand, in India it almost always the truck is significantly overloaded. (Cannot say how much as I don't have the data).
3. While it is true that truckers don't keep the lane, who does?
4. Slower trucks are a problem, but so is the speeding trucks.
5. If a BMW can be driven at 150 in a 100-120 speed limit expressway, why a truck can't be driven at 40-60 kmph in a 80 speed limit road?
6. In India, what training do we have for a truck driver viz-a-viz a car driver viz-a-viz a biker? Whether it is before license or after license.
7. In India, there is strictly no enforcement whatsoever and wheresoever. How practically it is possible to provide a law enforcement officer/police physically to monitor and enforce such laws even if it they want to?
8. Increase in engine power means in significant increase in the safety systems, warning systems, driver responsibilities, etc. Will this not add to the material cost that eventually land on every common person of our country? Already our truckers are cribbing for high fuel cost and other tax issues.
9. Finally, In India, buses and trucks are almost similar in terms of the Gross Vehicle Weight. And the engine specs are also similar. We all know why a bus is faster than a truck?

I am sure there are many more points that is discussed/will be discussed in this thread. So I don't see the need or a valid reason for an increase in the engine power for trucks in India.

[dust-n-bones]

How about installing pantographs in dedicated truck lanes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3P_S7pL7Yg

Given the price benefit of electricity in running and upkeep, would be a strong incentive for truckers to add 'kits' and keep to designated lanes.

In addition to dedicated railway freight corridors, this allows a majority of our freight traffic to switch to electric - without first installing a nationwide charging infra.

Cars and 2 wheelers can fight for the remaining scraps (lanes).