Drivers slow down their tractor-trailer rigs to save fuel

[n2doc]

By JAMES MacPHERSON | Associated Press Writer
12:21 PM CDT, March 22, 2008


BISMARCK, N.D. - Coast-to-coast trucker Lorraine Dawson says fellow drivers used to call her "Lead Foot Lorraine." But with diesel fuel around $4 a gallon, she and other big-rig drivers have backed off their accelerators to conserve fuel.

"I used to be a speed demon, but no more," said Dawson, based at Tacoma, Wash. "Most drivers have cut their speed considerably."

Dawson said she's cut her speed by five to 10 miles per hour to save money for her company. Many independent owner-operators have slowed even more, she said.

"My fiance is an owner-operator and he's been crying a lot about the price of fuel," Dawson said. "He's been slowing way down."

Truckers and industry officials say slowing a tractor-trailer rig from 75 mph to 65 mph increases fuel mileage by more than a mile a gallon, a significant bump for machines that get less than 10 miles per gallon hauling thousands of pounds of freight. Even sitting still with the engine idling, a rig gulps about a gallon of diesel every hour.

"We just can't afford it," Dawson said of diesel as she was topping off her fuel tanks at a Bismarck truck stop.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-ap-slowertruckers,0,2513916.story

[Inkyfuzzbottom]

1. Good

Maybe they'll all slow down and stop causing wrecks and killing people. I drive a major north/south highway through the middle of the country every day to and from work. Huge trucks barreling up and down the highway at excessive speed in heavy traffic and inclement weather are constantly crashing and killing people.

[Ikonoklast]

5. NHTSA and insurance statistics put car drivers at fault

Between 60-75% of the time, for car-truck accidents where there is a fatality involved.

Sorry. Car drivers are their own worst enemy.

[Warpy]

2. I've noticed that here in NM

The highways are a lot less scary with the tandem trailers slowing 10-15 MPH.

[RB TexLa]

3. Guess I've been ahead of them on that, I drive 15 to 10 MPH below the speed limit

already. I do it just because I relax when I drive.

[juno jones]

4. I can't remeber the exact stats on the 55 mph speed limit

But not only did it save lives, but it saves a signifigant amount of fuel as well.

I still tend to drive 55-60.

[Ikonoklast]

6. Good article on split-speed limits encompasses driver error

Split data at the heart of battle over split speed limits

-snip-

Julie Cirillo, former assistant administrator and chief safety officer for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, recently testified in Ohio in favor of ending split speeds in that state.

“Vehicles traveling 10 to 15 mph slower than the mean speed of traffic were much more likely to be involved in accidents than vehicles traveling slightly above the mean speed,” the former federal official said. “In 1963, David Solomon reported that deviation from the mean speed of traffic in both the negative and positive direction contributed significantly to the occurrence of accidents.”

-snip-

According to NHTSA, in accidents that involved a truck and another vehicle where law enforcement said speeding was a factor, officers said the truck was speeding in 22 percent of cases.

But speeding by the other vehicle, rather than the truck, was a factor in 78 percent of the accidents in that category.

The NHTSA study also noted a similar pattern in other truck-car wreck statistics.

“There were 1,696 fatalities in head-on crashes involving a large combination truck and a passenger vehicle where the passenger vehicle was in the combination truck’s lane,” the study said. “There were only 177 fatalities in head-on crashes involving a large combination truck and a passenger vehicle where the combination truck was in the passenger vehicle’s lane.”

The AAA’s own research shows a similar pattern. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety said one of its studies determined that when car-truck accidents occur, the car driver is at fault most of the time.

“Car drivers were found to make more errors than truckdrivers,” J. Scott Osberg, director of research at the AAA Foundation, told Land Line. “The focus should be on the unsafe driving acts that lead to these fatal crashes.”

The foundation used federal statistics from the Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System, the same source as the NHTSA study, to produce its April 2002 report, often cited by federal transportation officials.

That report said, “The results corroborate earlier studies of car-truck crashes showing that there are many more unsafe actions by car drivers than truckdrivers.”