OCR Text |
Show BETTER ROADS Chief Causes of Injury to Improved Highways The chief causes of injury to improved im-proved highways, used by motortrucks, are listed by observers as follows : 1. Overloading of trucks. 2. Poor road material and construction. construc-tion. 3. Speeding of trucks. 4. "Unsprung weight," or weight of a loaded truck not sustained by springs. "It is an evidence of wisdom as well as justice toward all road users on the part of highway officials to keep load weights within reasonable bounds," says an expert. It isn't economy to load a truck beyond be-yond its capacity, he adds. "A truck will stand some overload ; the manufacturer manu-facturer refers to this as the factor of safety. It might better be called a factor of Ignorance, for the additional strength of the truck is expected by the owner to support the additional load put on it due to ignorance." Don't blame the big truck, is the warning of an automotive engineer. "The truth about the motortruck and the road," he explains, "is that in practically prac-tically ail cases ascribed to the large truck the real cause of road failure has been some defect In design and construction of the road, such as Insufficient Insuf-ficient foundations, weakening by frost, lack of proper drainage or the use of Inferior materials. "Unsprung weight," or the weight not sustained by springs, helps break up the roads. "It has been found," he says, "that a large-capacity truck so designed as to have a light unsprung weight has a much lighter impact than a smaller truck having a heavier unsprung un-sprung weight." "The road must be adapted to the load," concludes this engineer. "To attempt to solve the problem by prohibiting pro-hibiting the use of the larger truck is equivalent to the action of a railway that, finding Its roadbed and rails inadequate in-adequate for its increased traffic, should discontinue the use of powerful locomotives. This would deprive the public of the service to which it is entitled." |