[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.

Companies are well aware that the legal limit for a regular truckload is less than 40 tonnes. Yet they insist on overloading them in order to reduce costs. Competition induces greater overloading by transporters to bag large annual contracts. For instance, the study found that a steel company that transports one-lakh tonnes to Mumbai every month from the South actually demands a load factor of at least 60 tonnes against the legal limit of 35 tonnes to cut transport costs. The truckers then bribe police officials all the way to their destination to ensure clear passage. This is now a smooth and well-oiled system with pre-negotiated rates for each police checkpoint. The transport office also plays an important role in this loot by passing dilapidated trucks as road-worthy for a price. That is why key transport postings are ‘auctioned’ for huge prices.

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.

Once companies insist on the use of good quality trucks and no overloading, the loot will be dramatically reduced. The rest of the market is small, fragmented and cannot engender massive organised corruption.

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

Edit: Changed formatting.

[streetlife]

you go to any highway and you will get a clear picture of accidents (especially NH8 NH24)i have seen a lot of that due to over loading and drunk drivers most of it happens at night i have seen truckers at more than 70 kmph at nights
so guys when driving at nights as they say KEEP DISTANCE....

[Samurai]

typeO-,

You missed one more serious issue related to this. Overloaded trucks are the biggest contributing factor towards destroying of roads and bridges, more than rains ever can.

For example, overloaded trucks with manganese ore are causing major problems in Mangalore and Udupi district causing roads to be destroyed and bridges to collapse.

And what did they do about this? They increased the fines (proportionally bribes increased), thereby making the police richer, it didn't stop the overloaded trucks even a bit.

http://www.hindu.com/2004/11/27/stor...2712670300.htm
http://www.barkuronline.com/News/News58.html

[Surprise]

When I saw this subject an incident came flashing before my eyes

This happened before 6 months. An overloaded (3 tonnes) truck carrying tiles to a godown, located in a residential area, negotiating between narrow lanes. Driver has more things due for this attention- The overhead electrical & telephone cables, the two wheelers parked on the side of the road, hundreds of children’s on the road on their way to school etc etc

The driver stopped his overloaded truck at one place preparing this mind how to negotiate a very sharp curve. Traffic got congested behind this truck & most of them started to get their way to move forward on the sideways.

None of them noticed that the rear wheels on standing on top of a manhole. Within few minutes, the manhole got broken & half of the rear wheel got disappeared.

The container placed on the truck slowly slided and was about to fall. A 30 yrs old man in the bicycle quickly grasped the worst situation & removed a college girl in her TVS 50 waiting to move. Literally he throwed that female out from the scene.

Before he could move, the entire container landed on the guy. Just his head his visible and remaining parts went under the container. Blood was profusely bleeding from his mouth & he was dead in no time. It took 2 hrs to remove his body.

Later we found that the bolt that holds the truck and the container got break & the truck was full of rust.

From thereon whenever I see a container I will make sure that I will let it off.

[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)

[RX135]

Originally Posted by normally_crazy

either they are drunk ...or drive on experience (whatever that is)

Notwithstanding all the criticism on truckers, they are the MOST disciplined lot on the highways, drunk or non-drunk. Look at the number of trucks plying on our roads and their proportion in number of accidents. Most accidents involve 4 wheerls or motorcycles.

[libre sito]

hey people the major reason why trucks have to be overlaoaded is the demand from companies to diliver more goods in a certain time frame and also the very low price charged by them transporters who barely make any money at the end of the day by bribing cops and interstate officials and also the loss incured due to loot by the drivers which by the way is very common in transportation of OIL products.Also if u say why not ferry more than one truck to supply goods well the ans is the company will not pay for two tucks plyin it will just pay for the amount of good delivered so its impossible to send out an entire truck of 18-20 ton capacity for a ton or two of extra goods that need to be delivered as that will make the transporter go in a huge loss so he rather just overload the truck by a ton or two and send the other truck to another destination.

[Abhay]

yea a photo in todays papers...an overaloaded truck got stuck in a recently repaired pothole..
Tells a lot abt the weight of the triuck as well as the quality of teh repair :\

[ananthkamath]

Originally Posted by libre sito

....transporter go in a huge loss so he rather just overload the truck by a ton or two and send the other truck to another destination.

By a ton or two? My friend, a ton or two is like chump change and they do that ALL the time like its no big deal.

More common (and worrying) is, however, overloading by 50%. Do you know that even the Volvo FH12s are carrying 60 tons as opposed to 40 tons passing?

Why, the Volvo B7R bus used to carry 3-4 tons in its cargo hold below the passenger area? Take that for ingenuity.....

[lamborghini]

One way to fix this would be to understate the loading capacity by 5 tons.
That should help.
What is it with the Permit passed till 200x written on the front sides of the truck?
When passing a plying permit o they check the worthiness of the truck?

[paharino1]

As far as highway driving in concerned..I think I give a thumbs up to the truckies..
In the cities...its a different proposition though..

The most dangerous Speed Monsters on the Indian Highways currently are the Volvo buses...
With those 6-8 lights on , crazy speeds...they scared me like hell during my recent Hyd-Blr trip..

[Minardi]

This is slightly off-topic...Majority of the trucks have absolutely no lights at the back. Forget light, not even reflectors. In the night, if you are speeding, they suddenly appear from nowhere infront of you.

[ajmat]

Originally Posted by paharino1

..

The most dangerous Speed Monsters on the Indian Highways currently are the Volvo buses...
With those 6-8 lights on , crazy speeds...they scared me like hell during my recent Hyd-Blr trip..

Read what happened to me here

http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5485

[paharino1]

Yes..ajmat...
they are nuts...
i got that feeling of chills running down my spine when that Volvo went past me !!!

[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.