[1100D]

Whats been said here is an open secret. Almost everyone knows. (even underspecifying does not help because thats how these trucks are specified in the first place. In most probability a 40 tonner will have the chassis of a 80 tonner and the engine of a 30 tonner. Given the dynamics of the commercial market).

Whats shameful is that rules pertaining to avoid these are already present, its, just as always, enforcement thats an issue. The functioning of this parallel economy is a testament to the fact that, either you join them , or just brood about it. Nothing can be done.

[tsk1979]

Though truck drivers are most disciplined on the road(much more than the MuV and Bus drivers) the trucks themselves are not roadworthy.
A vehicle loaded to twice its permitted capacity cannot be in an optimum connection.
Sadly the nexus in the entire chain ensures that these issues will just remain on websites and in newspaper columns.

A workable solution.
When a police party impounds an overloaded truck, entire cargo is to be confiscated and half the value be given to the Police party.
Imagine impounding a truck loaded with cars worth 50 lakh and 25 lakh going to 5 policemen at checkpost.

[sandhurs1]

I followed this monster for 20 min,
before i gathered the courage to overtake.

I wish he could read this:
Overloading can put unwarranted stress on an tires and suspension. It can impact a vehicle's handling and make braking difficult. And especially if you've added a rooftop rack, and high center of gravity makes it prone to rolling over.

Note from Team-BHP Support : Thread MERGED. Please use the search feature before creating a new thread on a topic that might already exist. Please continue your discussion in an existing thread. This will keep all the relevant information in one place and make it easier for readers in the future.

[aaggoswami]

I think that the truck axles are designed to take 2 ton more load than recommended/specified. For example, if the specified weight a truck can carry is 15 ton, then the axles are designed to take 17 ton.

But in reality the things are different. They just dont overload it, they grossly overload the trucks just to earn more money. More to save money these trucks are rarely serviced properly at timely intervals. When brake fails or some accident occurs because of mechanical error, then rather than catching the real culprit i.e. the truck owner, the driver is usually caught.

The trucks are so badly overloaded that on hilly terrain the truck driver cannot even apply power quickly. He has to be very careful or else the propellor shaft breaks down. I have seen this happening personally.
The damage they are doing to environment and roads is too much.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Competition is good. I suspect that the survey mentioned in the first post, of the thread, was commissioned by the new entrant (to India) manufacturer with higher capacity trucks.

They had launched a multi axle vehicle, and the Kerala transport department would not permit it to be registered in Kerala, because the roads in Kerala would not bear the load (sinse when were roads designed that way? AFAICT, roads are designed with the axle weight, not vehicle weight).

[mmmjgm]

Originally Posted by tsk1979

Though truck drivers are most disciplined on the road(much more than the MuV and Bus drivers) the trucks themselves are not roadworthy.

A workable solution.
When a police party impounds an overloaded truck, entire cargo is to be confiscated and half the value be given to the Police party.
Imagine impounding a truck loaded with cars worth 50 lakh and 25 lakh going to 5 policemen at checkpost.

A really workable solution would be load limited bearings to be supplied to truck manufacturers, 10% beyond approved capacity means the bearing shears. (not that the axle shears) but does not transfer the load and sits down. This means the vehicle cannot move.

Originally Posted by typeOnegative

I think this is an interesting article to read from the pov of us on the highways and roads in the city. I have recently had a run in with a truck and though I did not lose much, I think car drivers need to be aware of certian implications as pointed out in this article. This was taken from our B-School mailing group. The articel appeared in the Indian Express.



Highway loot
SUCHETA DALAL

Sucheta Dalal Anyone travelling on India’s highways cannot have missed the large number of trucks lying overturned or collapsed by the roadside, or slowing down traffic by crawling at under 20 kmph. In a majority of cases, this has three explanations — the truck is not road-worthy, is grossly overloaded or the driver is drunk. There are clear rules to prevent each of these violations, but they are all flouted for a price. A truck manufacturer who wants to remain unnamed conducted a private study to find out how much money changes hands to legalise overloading of trucks that endanger people’s lives. It came up with a whopping figure of Rs 2,000 crore paid annually to police officials across the country in order to condone overloading. To put it in perspective, this is equal to the entire Securities Transaction Tax (STT) that the finance minister will hope to collect in a raging bull market. The large-scale loot remains undetected because the money paid per truck is fairly low.

Ironically, instead of tackling this daily highway robbery, the finance minister was focussed on exempting precisely this group from service tax and surcharge. Was it because they were already taxed informally?

Loot matrix

Here is how the study arrived at its conclusions about the highway loot. India has about 30 lakh trucks plying on the roads everyday. A sample study of costs, with cooperation from trucking companies revealed that 90-95 per cent of them carry overloads of anywhere between 50-80 per cent. More interestingly, it found that large companies actually pushed truckers to overload vehicles.



Dangerous effects

The loot has even more dangerous consequences. Although all overloaded trucks that ply on Indian highways are insured, insurance companies would technically be well within their rights to deny payment. This starts another round of palm greasing to ensure that the police help to suppress true loads in order to claim insurance. The nexus between the police and truckers also has a macabre element because the police are generally pre-disposed to side with truckers when they are involved in accidents with private vehicles unless the victims invoke the right connections. Clearly, corporate India (including large public sector companies), which complains incessantly about bad infrastructure and corruption, needs to clean up its own house.


http://www.indianexpress.com/full_st...ntent_id=80131

Edit: Changed formatting.

Bhai, if the loot is not spread around evenly how does the politician fight elections. Oopar tak jaata hai. Numbers cannot be mentioned here, read between the lines. PM for financials related to elections (please note my wish to exercise discretion here).

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

guys ,

going a bit - i read some where a survey on why truck accidents happen ! and a very important point was that we hardly ever see any truck drivers with glasses. either they are drunk ...or drive on experience (whatever that is)

That is like the poor BPO coolies, they do not have time to visit an eye doctor (for the lack of the correct word). Working hours and timings are not suitable. Even if they did, the truckers most probably wont stick around in a city long enough in an area for an optician to fabricate their glasses. I state this because for a load pickup in Bombay Port area, they need to wait, meet up with the Customs House agent, call him, then arrange a gate pass and enter the port for the specific time when they are going to get the particular container/load loaded onto the truck. Also they are accosted for VARAI sometimes by local port trust loaders (union).

This takes approx 5-7 hours until and unless its a bulk carrier discharge (loading into trucks) again inspection and things like that takes time, time is money for the transportation trade.

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

Check out this specimen of a dumper. Look at the tyres if there is anything called that left on the rims. With these kind of tyres and the speeds these dumpers do, its no wonder they can't brake and run over people.

That's the result of overloading & driving on bad roads/non existent roads. Can't really blame the driver but the owner of the truck, bribing cops helps them pass the vehicle during inspection. Non existent roads are where the dumpers function.

[sudev]

One way to overcome this is to make tolls based on laden weight with more than simple increase as the loading goes higher.. With private players manning the tolls compliance is likely to be high on collection. However the authorities think (I have this from a source in NHAI) "if we charge higher we are legalizing overloading" so it is better not to start this practice.
Technology is there to do rolling weighing and can be linked to toll collection system to prevent understating of laden weight.

[watashi75]

Isn't there any rule to catch vehicles running on bald tyres?

[tsk1979]

There are laws which are there to check overloading, running trucks with bald tires, or running ill maintained trucks, but cops do not enforce them. Recently a sting operation was conducted which found the reason why(bribes),
An inquiry was started by "higher ups", and as usual, nothing more was done, and nothing more will be done.

[sudev]

My take is that lets start from totally different perspective. Rather simple overview.

What do customers of transporters want? Quick delivery and economy.

How can transporter give economy? By overloading.

That leaves us with delivery. Speed and distance. Both are are met if the vehicle takes the fast speed arterial routes. These are under toll so he pays toll. (I know there are detours taken by many to avoid toll gates but these are becoming scarce as more length of toll highways gets built). Since toll highways are private operated the tendency to bye-pass toll collection is low (not zero but low).

Now if we start collecting toll on weight (axle weight) with increasing toll on - say - geometric proportion the transporters tendency can be checked. He will reduce overload by increasing axles (become compliant to law - objective achieved) or he can pay much higher/steeper toll.

Have seen something similar operate on US highways where the weight check is kept random (the weigh gates are not always operational).

End of the day eliminating overload has to make economic sense also.

[kkr2k2]

this pic, i took while we were going to Yercaud from B'lore:



What happens if the government authorities start implementing the rules strictly.

I cant comment on "to what extent our roads would become safe" but one thing for sure "the inflation will rise substantially".

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by kkr2k2

this pic, i took while we were going to Yercaud from B'lore:

Attachment 66372

What happens if the government authorities start implementing the rules strictly.

I cant comment on "to what extent our roads would become safe" but one thing for sure "the inflation will rise substantially".

Not it won't. This is a silly story fed by transporters.
Short term gains are there, but overall it does not augur well for the economy.
Infact lack of regulations is hurting the transport industry.
My cousin is a transporter, and their transport company was pretty big, with fast modern trucks, well maintained. Their rates were also slightly higher, but their reliability was much more.
Slowly, lots of 2 man shop kind of fly by night operators got into the scene, who would use dilapidated trucks, overload trucks and offer much cheaper rates.
This has a cascading effect. Every big transporter, barring a few who can get plum contracts like car transportation starts overloading, leading to pressure on roads and accidents.
Having a regulated transport industry which has to follow the rules may cause a small rise in inflation initially, but as things settle down, our roads will be faster and safer.

[aerohit]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

guys ,

going a bit - i read some where a survey on why truck accidents happen ! and a very important point was that we hardly ever see any truck drivers with glasses. either they are drunk ...or drive on experience (whatever that is)

Most truck drivees probabaly cannot afford regular eye checkup or glasses or lens - you know what that means at night time

[maddy42]

@kkr2k2 The case in the pic you posted occurs when the load tilts to one side as the load was not properly loaded plus the packing was not done properly.

Well as a matter of fact lots of bridges in our country especially the ones in rural areas where SH are present cannot take a load above a particular limit. But there is no manning of this to find out if this rule is flouted. This case is happening in our place but the authorities are expecting us to go on the roads and hold hartals!! So much for getting people elected!

[motorpsycho]

Reviving an old thread , I recently came across a survey on Corruption in Trucking Operations in India . The report itself is dated 2007 but the figures would have only increased.
Some of the findings

Rs 79,920 is paid as bribe by a commercial truck during a year.

On a given day, each truck while on road, on an average, ends up paying Rs.235 as bribe money, ranging between Rs 211-266 depending upon the route

With 95 per cent truck drivers in the survey reported paying bribes
The bribe amount floating in the trucking operations has been worked out to be more than Rs 22,200 crore a year.

Tokens, stickers, playing cards and code words are used to convey about the ‘payment’ being made. Even stickers with hologram to identify ‘original’ from fake are in circulation

Source:
http://transparencyindia.org/resourc...in%20India.pdf