[julupani]

@Vina

I know about these complications. I was just giving a simplified view.

[Bullitt]

Originally Posted by julupani

@Bullitt,

True local roads would probably not take into account regular use by a heavy vehicles. But even then a properly made road, will not wilt under the pressure of heavily vehicles, unless it is already close to the end of its life and has sustained previous damage.

A newly laid local road too would not start getting damaged by heavy vehicles.

Most cities dont allow heavy vehicles to operate within city limits, except in special cases like large construction projects may undertake the use of heavy vehicles, but I think there is some extra fee involved for obtaining such a permit. If the operator has such a permit he is within the law and has paid the extra money to damage local roads.

I know in my city smaller construction projects like houses etc are now forced to use tractors or LCVs if they have to get work done, because the police does not allow heavy vehicles to enter. Only the larger contractors can afford to use the heavy vehicles for their projects. And this is without any height restrictors anywhere.

The height restrictors are just that. They are not meant to prevent heavy vehicles, but vehicles which cannot pass through on that road due to certain limitations, most common being electrifed railway lines, low bridges or low overhead wires.

But contacting your local corporator to find out what the actual legal situation is a good idea.

@ julupani: You might have seen certain bridges on which heavy vehicles are not allowed to enter. The reason is simple, the bridge is not designed to take the load, and will collapse if heavy vehicles use it. And even 1 heavy vehicle is enough to do that.

The case here is similar. The road builder made the road for a residential area, where only cars/bikes/autos and the occasional LCV/MCV are expected to ply. Why would he use extra bitumen/tar (or whatever it is) to beef it up?

Besides, greenhorn is not talking about just one passing-by tipper. In any area, once tippers start moving, they make hundreds of trips in a day. No road in any residential area, old or new, can take so much abuse. Greenhorn has also said "And they've been fine for cars and bikes for years now", which means the roads were good enough for their original purpose.

If the operator has such a permit he is within the law and has paid the extra money to damage local roads.

Excuse me! Can I too, pay a fee and obtain the right to damage local roads? Whats are the rates for internal roads/arterial roads/state highways/national highways?

Where did that come from?

Besides, I wasn't talking about city limits, thats different. I was talking about areas within the city classified as "residential areas".

For example, the area where my parents stay is classified as a "residential area", and heavy vehicles are not allowed to enter. If they do, residents can lodge a police complaint, and action will be taken against the truck operator. Years ago, I remember there used to be those metal "height restrictors" at all entry points to prevent them from entering. All this happened after an accident in which a bus claimed the life of a school girl. Those barricades have now disappeared, but the rule still stands.

Another excellent example is an area called "Queen's Garden" in Pune, very close to the railway station. Puneites will know it. It is a residential area that houses the government quarters of a lot of high-ranking civil servants as well as military officers. Naturally, the police have keenly enforced the "no heavy vehicle" rule there. The height-barriers were still there uptil a couple of years back, I haven't been there since.

So you see, there is a rule/law which disallows heavy vehicles from plying in residential areas. The only thing is, I am not an expert in legalese, hence I was wondering if any legal eagle among us could elaborate.

[dhanushs]

Originally Posted by vina

When a vehicle accelerates (or brakes), it puts a lot of horizontal forces on the road surface. These tend to sheer the surface and require the road to have tensile strength - which it doesn't have much of.

Heavier vehicles cause more of the above.

You are right. Apart from damage due to rain/water, where damage starts from the inside, heavily loaded lorries plying frequently impart huge amount of shear stress on the road surface.

If you observe the roads you can see the slow erosion of the top layer forming an irregularity, which later becomes a pothole, and then a crater big enough to cause safety hazards to two wheelers.

Yes - Tipper lorries does damage residential roads.

[julupani]

1st of all, truckers always pay more road tax, for the exact reason that the amount of effect that they have on roads worsening is a lot more.

As for the permits, they are there for operators who need them, not for anybody out there. Also a permit does not mean they can legally overload or anything. The permit allows them to go where they normally would not, but would need to in special circumstances.

Also I have not yet heard of any law in any area that states heavy vehicles are banned from "residential areas". I know many cities implement not to allow heavy vehicles, some within certain time limits, some only on the main roads etc etc. But sometimes you need those big trucks to come along and do their job. Thus the permit system, after paying an extra fee of sorts.

As for roads getting damaged, it doesnt take a few hundred trip, it takes more like millions. And a new road properly made local road would have to be abused for months on end for it to be seriously damaged.

As for a bridge falling even when one heavy vehicle strays on to it, is obviously not designed to take such loads. But I have not yet seen any such bridge on the roads. The bridges which prevent heavy vehicles from entering will not exactly fall apart the moment one does. But because they are old and have already taken a beating over the years, thus putting it through more beating under heavy vehicles may cause failure at any point of time. You wont find a new bridge which will not allow heavy vehicles, unless they are temporary bridges which cant take that high a load.

[Pri2]

I am no expert on this topic, but I have seen tippers carrying iron ore from Bellery to the Mangalore port on the Shiradi ghat damaging newly repaired roads. They overload the tippers by more than 3 times the the tipper's limit. Believe it or not, I have seen half inch deep tyre marks left behind by these tippers !!

There are lorries specially made to carry that kind of load with more axles and tyres so that the weight is distributed evenly on the road.

[julupani]

@Pri2

The 3 times value is just not true. A normal 3-axle 25ton axle tipper has a official payload of about 18tons. If you put 3 times its payload, that is about 54tons, the total weight of the tipper would end up being about 60tons.

At this point, I doubt the tipper would be in one piece let alone move.

A 25ton tipper would probably be able to go upto about 40-45tons at best. And that too not on a regular basis, may be once in a while. Even doing it once will cause pretty serious damage to the truck. Like I mentioned before, 30% overloading is the kind you see regularly. At times close to 50-60% is done, but not more than that. So a 3-axle tipper would at best be loaded regularly upto 30-33tons and no more, unless the operator plans to replace his trucks every year.

[vina]

Originally Posted by julupani

@Vina

I know about these complications. I was just giving a simplified view.

Hi julupani

this may be a misunderstanding, but if you read my post, I thought I wrote that I agreed with your premise on pressure (rather than weight) and explained it further in terms of tyre pressures.

Did I disagree with you much?

[julupani]

Vina

I think it is you who misunderstood, my 2nd post not the first which you have quoted above( just clarifying for prevent any further misunderstanding ).

I know that you agreed with me, but I said that I too knew of all the things that you mentioned in your explanation, and that instead of going into so much details, I had presented it in a simplified and easy to understand way.

[Bullitt]

Originally Posted by julupani

1st of all, truckers always pay more road tax, for the exact reason that the amount of effect that they have on roads worsening is a lot more.

As for the permits, they are there for operators who need them, not for anybody out there. Also a permit does not mean they can legally overload or anything. The permit allows them to go where they normally would not, but would need to in special circumstances.

Payment of more road tax does not "entitle" anyone to "damage" the road. Just because a person pays more road tax does not mean that person can run amok all over the city with his vehicle. Usage of the road is a privilege that is granted by the government, not a right.

The permits allow them to go where "they are normally not allowed to go", for example in a crowded business district area at peak hours. Similarly, they are not allowed in certain residential areas.

Also I have not yet heard of any law in any area that states heavy vehicles are banned from "residential areas". I know many cities implement not to allow heavy vehicles, some within certain time limits, some only on the main roads etc etc. But sometimes you need those big trucks to come along and do their job. Thus the permit system, after paying an extra fee of sorts.

I gave you verifiable real life examples. Even I am not aware of the exact law, but I'm sure the cops wouldn't implement such bans without any legal foundation to back it up, like a section under IPC or CrPC or something like that under which they can "charge" an offender.

Any Indian who has never been to Mumbai in his life will never believe that autorickshaws are not allowed to enter half of the city area. You may very well say that you haven't heard of any law which states that autos are banned from a certain part of the city. For that matter, neither have I. But that doesn't mean it's not true. Any Mumbaikar will tell you that.

As for roads getting damaged, it doesnt take a few hundred trip, it takes more like millions. And a new road properly made local road would have to be abused for months on end for it to be seriously damaged.

Have you ever been to a mining affected area? You greatly under-estimate the destructive power of tippers. I have seen a brand-new state highway get damaged in a matter of days due mining tippers. It's not a pleasant sight.

As for a bridge falling even when one heavy vehicle strays on to it, is obviously not designed to take such loads. But I have not yet seen any such bridge on the roads. The bridges which prevent heavy vehicles from entering will not exactly fall apart the moment one does. But because they are old and have already taken a beating over the years, thus putting it through more beating under heavy vehicles may cause failure at any point of time. You wont find a new bridge which will not allow heavy vehicles, unless they are temporary bridges which cant take that high a load.

There is a narrow bridge over a river, just 500 mts away from my house. It allows access to a crowded old-city residential area with very narrow lanes. No heavy vehicles are allowed on it. And no, it's not older than 15 years.

There are 2 "new" bridges in Pune's prime "Deccan" area classified as 2-wheeler bridges. Again, no 4-wheelers allowed. That includes trucks.

The old bridges you refer to are a different story altogether, most of them were built during the British era. Even they wont fall apart when a heavy vehicle comes in, but you never really know right? Nobody wants to take that risk. Ditto for these new bridges too.

I don't see why its so hard to believe that a residential street is not designed to take the load of tippers.

Originally Posted by julupani

@Pri2

The 3 times value is just not true. A normal 3-axle 25ton axle tipper has a official payload of about 18tons. If you put 3 times its payload, that is about 54tons, the total weight of the tipper would end up being about 60tons.

At this point, I doubt the tipper would be in one piece let alone move.

A 25ton tipper would probably be able to go upto about 40-45tons at best. And that too not on a regular basis, may be once in a while. Even doing it once will cause pretty serious damage to the truck. Like I mentioned before, 30% overloading is the kind you see regularly. At times close to 50-60% is done, but not more than that. So a 3-axle tipper would at best be loaded regularly upto 30-33tons and no more, unless the operator plans to replace his trucks every year.

My father worked with the Tata Motors CV division for 43 years, the last 10 of which he spent closely interacting with dealers and fleet operators. From all that I have heard from him, I can say that what Pri2 is saying is true, atleast for long distance freight trucks. I won't be surprised if the same practices are used for tippers.

Fleet operators are known to dismantle the complete suspension of the vehicle and add more than twice the number of torsion bars at the back to enable the vehicle to take the load. Even the entire ladder chassis is welded with strengthening bars to prevent it from collapsing. The trucks are then used regularly to haul 3x loads on long distance routes, typically covering more than a thousand kms. And no, they don't fall apart.

But fried clutches are common, and so are bald tyres. Clutch replacement and tyre retreading is the norm after every trip. Because of the money involved, these trucks typically pay themselves back and make a decent profit in an year or so, after which they are replaced with new ones.

The next time you see a freight truck on a highway crawling at 10-15 kmph, its probably because of the reasons mentioned above.

[YaeJay]

Yes. And sometimes even you.

[vina]

Originally Posted by julupani

Vina

I think it is you who misunderstood, my 2nd post not the first which you have quoted above( just clarifying for prevent any further misunderstanding ).

I know that you agreed with me, but I said that I too knew of all the things that you mentioned in your explanation, and that instead of going into so much details, I had presented it in a simplified and easy to understand way.

OK wasn't trying to explain to you though.

[vina]

Originally Posted by julupani

1st of all, truckers always pay more road tax, for the exact reason that the amount of effect that they have on roads worsening is a lot more.

If you make a million dollars a year, you'll be paying more taxes than the average joe. that doesn't increase your civil rights by one iota.

That said - We (i.e. most car owners etc.) use roads, not as a part of our work, but as a social service provided to us and pay back the prices of that service, not only via road taxes but a lot of other taxes.

the truckers, taxi guys ... use the road network as a part of their business. Also their usage of the network (in terms of loads carried, usage time etc.) is far more than that of average Joe car owner. It is fitting that they pay more taxes - but that wouldn't necessarily mean they get extra rights.

and by the way, they do get extra rights over those who don't pay more road tax - the guys who don't pay more are not allowed commercial use of the roads.


As for the permits, they are there for operators who need them, not for anybody out there. Also a permit does not mean they can legally overload or anything. The permit allows them to go where they normally would not, but would need to in special circumstances.

Also I have not yet heard of any law in any area that states heavy vehicles are banned from "residential areas". I know many cities implement not to allow heavy vehicles, some within certain time limits, some only on the main roads etc etc. But sometimes you need those big trucks to come along and do their job. Thus the permit system, after paying an extra fee of sorts.

There are municipal regulations and on bridges load limits of vehicles are clearly specified in many cases. Also vehicle heights limiters also act as a check on HCV (vs. LCV) and are erected in many places by the govt. authorities themselves - I wouldn't claim them to be illegal.


As for roads getting damaged, it doesnt take a few hundred trip, it takes more like millions. And a new road properly made local road would have to be abused for months on end for it to be seriously damaged.

this is not true - depends on the load. In fact a water-logged road will get damaged in a manner of days just from car traffic.


As for a bridge falling even when one heavy vehicle strays on to it, is obviously not designed to take such loads. But I have not yet seen any such bridge on the roads. The bridges which prevent heavy vehicles from entering will not exactly fall apart the moment one does. But because they are old and have already taken a beating over the years, thus putting it through more beating under heavy vehicles may cause failure at any point of time. You wont find a new bridge which will not allow heavy vehicles, unless they are temporary bridges which cant take that high a load.

All bridges are designed keeping some load in mind. Now most of the "new" bridges you are talking about can carry so much load that any conceivable load on a truck wouldn't matter. However in areas with low traffic (mountains etc.) and bad terrain bridges are designed with limited load capacities.

Also, trust me on this, given enough load, and bridge will fall apart instantly.

[vina]

Originally Posted by Bullitt

My father worked with the Tata Motors CV division for 43 years, the last 10 of which he spent closely interacting with dealers and fleet operators. From all that I have heard from him, I can say that what Pri2 is saying is true, atleast for long distance freight trucks. I won't be surprised if the same practices are used for tippers.

Fleet operators are known to dismantle the complete suspension of the vehicle and add more than twice the number of torsion bars at the back to enable the vehicle to take the load. Even the entire ladder chassis is welded with strengthening bars to prevent it from collapsing. The trucks are then used regularly to haul 3x loads on long distance routes, typically covering more than a thousand kms. And no, they don't fall apart.

But fried clutches are common, and so are bald tyres. Clutch replacement and tyre retreading is the norm after every trip. Because of the money involved, these trucks typically pay themselves back and make a decent profit in an year or so, after which they are replaced with new ones.

The next time you see a freight truck on a highway crawling at 10-15 kmph, its probably because of the reasons mentioned above.

Originally Posted by Pri2

I am no expert on this topic, but I have seen tippers carrying iron ore from Bellery to the Mangalore port on the Shiradi ghat damaging newly repaired roads. They overload the tippers by more than 3 times the the tipper's limit. Believe it or not, I have seen half inch deep tyre marks left behind by these tippers !!

There are lorries specially made to carry that kind of load with more axles and tyres so that the weight is distributed evenly on the road.

Amazing !

Even after all the mods @Bullitt claims this will probably require significant overdesign on the part of Tata Motors. hats off to them.

What kind of tyres do these guys use? And what is the pressure of the air in the tyres?



By the way, addition of extra torsion bars, stiffer springs etc. would hurt the roads even more than the extra load by itself could - all jerks will be transferred harder to the road.

[julupani]

@Bullitt

I too have worked with Tata Motors for some time, and am telling you this from my own interaction with the QFD people from the company.

The only cases where you see overloading to the tune greater than 50-60% is with tractor trailors. This is because most of the load is on the trailor rather than the tractor. Here we can see upto 80-90tons being pulled by highly reinforced trailors, without requisite permission. Even here the clutches would need replacement in about 5-6weeks.

I request you please ask your father what will be the effect of loading a 25ton tipper to the range of 60tons.

Tata Motors takes on a standard value of overloading of 30%, thus a 25ton GVW tipper is designed to regularly carry loads in the range 32-33tons. Of course I am not saying the vehicle will fail if you load it with 60tons the first time, but you cant do that too regularly. And even with 60ton on board, you will most likely have serious effect on the mechanicals.

@Vina

Obviously there will be a particular amount of load that will cause even a brand new bridge to collapse. At the end of the day there is nothing that is unbreakable. But that would probably require you to put upto 10-20times the loads that the bridge was designed to take regularly.

At the end of the day my point is, you cant hold the truckers solely responsible for damaging the roads at all. I am not saying a local road is built like the National highway. But even a properly built road (which should not cause water logging ) will not crumble in a few weeks because of a few trucks coming along the way. It will only if its very old already or it wasnt built properly.

[vina]

Originally Posted by julupani

@Bullitt

I too have worked with Tata Motors for some time, and am telling you this from my own interaction with the QFD people from the company.

The only cases where you see overloading to the tune greater than 50-60% is with tractor trailors. This is because most of the load is on the trailor rather than the tractor. Here we can see upto 80-90tons being pulled by highly reinforced trailors, without requisite permission. Even here the clutches would need replacement in about 5-6weeks.

I request you please ask your father what will be the effect of loading a 25ton tipper to the range of 60tons.

Tata Motors takes on a standard value of overloading of 30%, thus a 25ton GVW tipper is designed to regularly carry loads in the range 32-33tons. Of course I am not saying the vehicle will fail if you load it with 60tons the first time, but you cant do that too regularly. And even with 60ton on board, you will most likely have serious effect on the mechanicals.

@Vina

Obviously there will be a particular amount of load that will cause even a brand new bridge to collapse. At the end of the day there is nothing that is unbreakable. But that would probably require you to put upto 10-20times the loads that the bridge was designed to take regularly.

At the end of the day my point is, you cant hold the truckers solely responsible for damaging the roads at all. I am not saying a local road is built like the National highway. But even a properly built road (which should not cause water logging ) will not crumble in a few weeks because of a few trucks coming along the way. It will only if its very old already or it wasnt built properly.

thanks for your post and clarifying the 3x thing for trucks - I was wondering how is that going to happen, but once you decouple the tractor and trailor then I guess it becomes easier to do.

Still what do they do about the air pressure in the tyres and what kind of tyres do they use? My guess would be that with much higher weights unless they increase the number of axles (and tyres) the tyre will have to have much stronger sidewall and much more pressure.


On your comments on my post on bridges - bridges are designed to carry two to three times the rated load. However the rated load for most bridges is so high that it is almost certain that no vehicle would be carrying that kind of loads. The exception are bridges designed for areas where usage is not very high and high rated loads are difficult in the first place (e.g. mountain roads -bridges that mention "one vehicle at the time" etc.) . Another exception is railway bridges - those bridges have their rated loads, but since trains are a much more controlled load, margins can be squeezed a little.

And you probably are right that a few trucks going will not damage the road immediately, unless the road was old or badly laid in the first place, but very often repeated excursions of such trucks can visibly damage the road very fast - in days in fact. I have seen it happen.