Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Former trucker. If it's hot or cold AF it sucks not having a or heat. If it's a hot day, it's way hotter on blacktop surrounded by hot engines.
It can be a pain to turn it on and off a bunch of times per day, I know it sounds minor, but when you're trying to keep track of a bunch of things, making sure the right cargo comes off or on in the right order in the right way, hitting multiple docks or stops in quick succession. Trying to claim the space you need and trip plan (a lot of people don't realize how difficult it can be to get a truck through a city, especially East Coast cities).
Then you get somewhere and hop out of your truck to check in, thinking it will take 30 seconds. Talk to whomever you may need to, clear obstacles and eyeball the space you need to get your trailer into. You'll run into clueless, apathetic and just all around useless fucks at every corner. The sort of people that make glaciers seem on point. 30 seconds can turn into 30 minutes real quick.
It's a tough gig, and having an army of mercenary profit driven people out there looking to make a buck off the guy delivering literally everything you need to survive that's not air (and sometimes even that too) is kinda bullshit.
Edit: I'm not endorsing excessive idling, just trying to give some perspective on why a driver may fail to turn it off.
And also that a policy that pays anyone to report it is suspect at best. Where are we drawing the line on that? Jaywalking? What about immigration? Who's to say I can't start a company that surveils and informs for profit? It's a slippery damn slope with nothing nice at the bottom. Enforcement should be done with paid public servants, full stop.
Yeah all of those things do suck, we empathize with you. Just go ahead and turn off your engine though and avoid the fine.
that's one interpretation. another could be "a group of people who care enough about the air quality of their neighborhood that they finally stand up for themselves".
The first 3 paragraphs are absolute garbage.
Your last one I get, but still, it's a job, delivering in a large metropolitan area sucks. Turning your engine off ain't that hard. Yes I've worked as a driver.
I'm not defending the practice of excessive idling, was just trying to give some perspective. Ty for calling it garbage tho, always nice to hear constructive feed back.
There's a lot of externalizing of costs going on. The trucks are idling because the drivers are operating at the slimmest possible margin under the assumption that idling doesn't cost anything.
What we actually would want to get to is that idling does have a cost (environmental, health, pleasantness of the area, etc). And that cost ought to be passed up the chain so that the various goods being shipped are more expensive.
But without a more centrally-managed economy, the implementation is to put all the pressure on the truck drivers and leave them responsible for passing that pressure to the next step up the chain. It doesn't work out very well in practice because the drivers need to make a bunch of capital expenses for something like adding a cab AC and adding a batter-powered lift, but they've been operating at low margins so they're not in a position to do it.
I think I seen some calculation where it said that an engine uses the same amount of fuel to start as it does to idle five minutes. I don't know if that was average, a specific engine, or if it referred to gas or diesel though.
I think that used to be true on older cars, but with modern passenger cars emissions/fuel use for start up is about the same as 10s of idle. No clue if that's true for these big diesel vehicles tho.
Idling diesel is supposed to be very bad but long haul trucks are better at it because they need to keep refrigeration running. Either way, something like 2 minutes of idle is almost universally worse.
Local deliveries should be happening in electric vehicles. And 90% of long range trucks should have been a train. Go back in time a few decades and get the godless MBA having fucks out of the railroad industry.
Boom! Y'all should elect me king of everything, just solving problems left and right!
You'll have my vote for king as soon as you provide the time machine to enact your plan
Local deliveries can be fixed in a few years with proper regulations, and that's giving a generous time span for businesses to adapt.
Oh, I definitely agree on the local deliveries but. But you also mentioned going back in time a decade as part of your plan.
Including cargo bikes, not only electric box trucks.
Cargo bikes kinda suck for very heavy loads and terrain, theres a reason they used to be ubiquitous throughout China, but now everyone uses gas and electric.
*manual cargo bikes, you see a decent amount of 3+ wheeled electric or gas bike things carrying bikes, trash, veggies, w/e
You don't need a centrally managed economy, you just need ancient irish car maintenance wisdom.
My understanding is that turning off and on a diesel engine is not great for it or something like that. Sorry, my grandpa was a mechanic and I'm half remembering something he said.
They got these guys called mechanics who will fix the on off for you if it's not doing great. Go ahead and turn that engine off
Ya it's more wear and tear. It was more true with older engines than newer ones. Newer trucks have a more complex starting mechanism that's easier on the engine.
There are also older and jankier trucks still around which need the engine running for things like the lights and/or the hydraulic loading gate in the back to operate. Both these things are non-negotiable safety needs when loading or unloading a truck.
If you are using the lift gate that's not idling. Once you're ready to start rolling the delivery into the business you can go ahead and turn that truck off
Yeah that sucks, but that truck should be a train on a rail spur, and if we can punish anyone involved in making it not that, i am in favor.
Why do even countries that build train infrastructure transport most of their cargo with semi-trucks?