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Comment by mcguire | Hacker News Reader

Geeze. You have to go all the way to the bottom to find the answer.

"Maximum length of a truck with a semi-trailer in Europe is 18.75 meters. Some countries have some exceptions, but generally that is the rule. In order to use the maximum of this length for the cargo the tractor unit has to be as short as possible. The best way to achieve that is to mount the cabin over the engine."

Cab-overs have no other advantages, and everything else the article talks about is a side-effect of the length limit.

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> Cab-overs have no other advantages

That's not true. Lower overall length is an advantage for maneuvering in city streets and parking lots, which is why you see medium duty COE vehicles (mostly trucks but semi-tractors as well) in some parts of the US making local deliveries. It also provides a visibility advantage that reduces the accident rate.

However the US still has relatively huge trucks delivering and navigating our urban environments that have many pedestrians and bicyclists.

It's really frustrating how the US has too many urban streets designed for accommodating oversized trucks. It's really dangerous because the side affect of accommodating huge trucks is high speeds of passenger vehicles.

https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/desi...

> Cab-overs have no other advantages, and everything else the article talks about is a side-effect of the length limit.

There are definitely other advantages, such as that cabovers can generally navigate into tighter spots because of it's tighter turning radius. Yard space is usually very limited and roads more narrow and windy than America, so this is definitely a benefit.

I've seen some crazy tight turns on some unreasonably tiny country roads here in the UK that I can't imagine could be done with a vehicle 2 meters longer.

Almost every other episode of Grand Designs has some smart lorry driver reversing down a tiny access road.

The funny part is when you go to the 4th photo down and look into the passenger-side window. Got to wonder whether the author did that on purpose, or didn't notice.

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