Fuck Cars
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Wish we got a more complete understanding of the truckers' side in this article - why is it so hard to turn off your engine instead of idling?
The guy quoted in the article says that some trucks need to operate their lift gates 15 or 20 times in a day. First of all, turn on your engine to operate the gate and then turn it off when you're done... Secondly, if it is impacting business too much to take that extra time to turn the engine on and off, invest in an auxiliary power source to operate the lift gate.
Maybe I'm missing something?
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.
To add to this as a Diesel mechanic,
Diesel engines are designed to operate continuously for the most part, the most wear and tear on the engines happen during start up and shut down.
They take large batteries and more effort to start so repeatedly doing that over and over in short intervals will lead to flat batteries and burnt out starter motors
Diesel engines run most efficiently I.e less pollution and better fuel economy when warm, cold engines cause more soot etc.
The engines wear poorly and develope carbon deposits from stop start operations too increasing fuel consumption and NOX emissions.
Lastly but certainly not the end of it is most Diesel trucks have what's known as a turbo timer, this keeps the engine running 2 minutes or more depending on settings after the ignition is turned off.
This allows oil flow around the turbo and prevents unnecessary heat damage to components.
Certainly if i applied some thought to this i could come up with more reasons and others could argue against but that's what I've got to say on the matter
I will only counter with one point. The smell of DEF in every city everywhere every morning, noon, and night. 🤮
We need something better than diesel.
It's wild, I can't smell Def at all.
I'll give you the fact it's nightmare to repair especially on plant machinery.
Constant issues haha
Thanks for this perspective!!
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".
Yeah all of those things do suck, we empathize with you. Just go ahead and turn off your engine though and avoid the fine.
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.
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
I'll put the braniacs on it right after my coronation.
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
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.
Modern ICE passenger cars even automatically turn off their engine at traffic lights. Engine startup has become so reliable that the car can guarantee to spin up the engine and resume applying engine power the moment you press the gas pedal.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
Because they dont want ro risk running into your mom, who can only be shipped by train.
Edit: this isnt a 'your mom is fat' thing; hazardous materials.
My grandpa drove a semi truck;
The A/C was part of it, some truck stops even had a thing called “IdleAir” that was like a window unit so you didn’t have to leave your engine running. For semis nobody wants to sleep in a sunbaked box with no air.
But according to him, for the really big engines, turning it off and on causes more wear and tear than leaving it running. So back in the day when diesel was still very cheap compared to gas they all got in the habit of leaving it on all the time.
Even the cops leave their cars on all the time where I am from.
If you're loading and unloading 20 times a day, you're doing local delivery and should probably be in an electric truck in the first place.
Sorry, but those don't exist in any appreciable amount in the US, unfortunately.
I've often wondered why trucks can't have a stop+start system integrated like many cars have these days. Wouldn't need to be a conscious action to kill the engine, just something that happens automatically when they park up.