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Comment by Gigachad | Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised. This is a cool truck. Trucks hardly get any mention in safety discussions but seeing the visibility differences here its quite astounding how much they were able to improve it.

I wonder if it would make sense to mandate new ICE trucks to have the engine positioned behind the cab rather than under it to get these same improvements on non electric trucks.

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The blind zones on regular trucks are absolutely insane. That we as a society let these vehicles drive around in populated areas is crazy.

There’s a lot of construction in my neighborhood at the moment and it’s always a bit scary letting my kids bike to school. I more than once saw a truck backing into a construction site crossing over a side walk. In the dark. And with no guidance, only mirrors and cameras (if any). There’s so many examples of people being killed by trucks backing in populated areas. And probably even more examples of trucks crushing cyclist when turning right over the cycling lane.

I’ve told my kids to stay way clear of trucks and never assume the driver has seen them.

> There’s so many examples of people being killed by trucks backing in populated areas. And probably even more examples of trucks crushing cyclist when turning right over the cycling lane.

Few years back a girl died at a zebra crossing near my house; she started to cross but turned back half-way for whatever reason. Trucker was taking a turn and didn't see her (no way he could have), girl expected the truck to stop at the zebra crossing or maybe just didn't notice it, and ... yeah :-(

Not the trucker's fault as such, no way he could have done better, but it goes to show just how dangerous these things can be. Not the girl's fault either, but any discussion about right of way or what an idiot that driver is or whatever is utterly and completely pointless if you're lying under a truck. Always be careful, and always take responsibility for your own safety, even if you shouldn't have to. It's the smart thing to do.

Most truck drivers are pretty careful/decent in my experience (unlike van drivers or taxis...), but it's just so darn hard to see what's going on around you.

That's because US trucks (the goods carrying type, not the status symbol) still look they time-traveled from circa 1950, just even bigger now. Here is a random one from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trucking_industry_in_the_Unite...

It must be some kind of anti-competitive tariff situation for this to still be the prevailing design.

IIRC part of the explanation is length limits put on European trucks (so that they will be able to navigate the tighter design standards of the EU road network I believe) which make the cab-over design (where the driver sits above the engine) pretty much compulsory.

In the US, the cab-behind design (as seen in the image linked) remains the dominant one, both for practical (slightly easier access for maintenance IIRC) and probably cultural (no change here please!) reasons.

> for practical (slightly easier access for maintenance IIRC)

It's mainly this. A ton of truck drivers love the looks of the old Kenworth cab overs, but the issue is definitely maintenance becomes a nightmare. When the cab tilts forward, it makes access to the radiator more difficult.

There is also the inconvenience that the entire cab has to be tilted forward in order to access it. Which sends anything not secured rolling forward and out of place. Minor, but annoying.

However, the cab overs that dominated the 70s and 80s here in the US still don't have the same sight lines that the euro trucks do now.

I was worried it'd be about that Tesla Cybertruck but was pleasantly surprised as well. The added visibility is genuinely smart design that will, hopefully, save lives. Not sure how viable these could be for long hauls but if they're for city use only, I'm very excited.

I think they end up having less living space for the truck drivers. I don't know if that's a design limitation, or just a separate aspect of the European market (where the flat-front trucks are ubiquitous), but it would be bad for the quality of life of a lot of truck drivers in the US if the result would be a less comfortable living space.

I drove a euro-spec Mercedes cab over truck (complete with the glass that turns to dust if something like a rock, a pipe or pieces of an IED goes through it) when I was a civilian contractor overseas and they are pretty tiny compared to the full sleepers we have over here.

> I drove a euro-spec Mercedes cab over truck (complete with the glass that turns to dust if something like a rock, a pipe or pieces of an IED goes through it) when I was a civilian contractor overseas and they are pretty tiny compared to the full sleepers we have over here.

Oh, so a 1960s vehicle? I'm fairly sure lorries in Europe have had laminated windscreens since about the 1970s.

An IED? As in an Improvised Explosive Device? I suspect you're not comparing like with like here

The lamination keeps the whole thing from coming apart but the actual glass just breaks up into a bajillion little pieces making wearing eye protection a necessity.

It doesn’t all turn into powder though, think it has to do with the velocity of the penetrating object. A piece of shrapnel moving fast enough to put a nice mark in a Kevlar helmet leaves a little hole while a rock thrown into it makes it a big floppy mess. The pipe was kind of in the middle but I think that’s because it bounced off one of the ballistic plates I had on the dashboard instead of going straight through.

Before they put metal mesh screens over the windshield we were going through a lot of them so I’m pretty familiar with how euro-glass reacts to traumatic impacts.

Car windows in the US don't do this? Even my old Golf 2's windshield broke like this when I totaled it.

Surely there's a huge amount of in-city trucking that doesn't need a lot of "living space" for drivers? Such as trips from a regional distribution centre on the outskirts of a city to supermarkets within it? Obviously the distribution centre would be stocked from further out by larger trucks (or in an ideal world, by rail freight).

In Europe most drivers working with urban delivery will just go home in their own beds after work.

Yes. Not everywhere, not all the time, but a lot of logistic companies have their platform on the outskirt of major metropolis where the trucks are parked and emptied. Then delivery within the city is handle via van.

> but it would be bad for the quality of life of a lot of truck drivers

> For the US, Norden plans to follow a similar strategy, starting with a Class 7 variant (equivalent to the 16-ton EU model), with smaller Classes 5 and 6 variants following.

It is not a replacement for a 53' trucks. RTFA?

With the limiting factor of lorries ("trucks") in most jurisdictions being length, one would think the cab-over design lets you put a bigger sleeping cabin behind the driving space than the long-nose one.

Also, it's hard to see why you'd need much more than https://www.moodyinternational.co.uk/truck/scania-r580-topli... or https://www.ropasign.nl/Projecten/versteijnen-trucks-volvo-g... for a truck to do urban distribution work with. I mean, this https://www.smart-trucking.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Cu... monstrosity (from https://www.smart-trucking.com/big-truck-sleepers/ ), one of the few pics where you see the trailer, seems to have about one yard of engine + driver's cabin + sleeper for every two yards of trailer. Humongously inefficient. Not to mention these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct4fm__9HDg . Tell us, what's the use of clogging up inner-city streets with ten yards of truck-driver's McMansion for every truckload of stuff being delivered to downtown shops?

Those big sleepers can do a lot for the quality of life for the long haul drivers. Part of the reason the trucks with big sleepers are in town is because it's not often cost or time effective to drop the trailer at the edge and let a day cab bring it to the final destination. I imagine this could potentially change, though.

Such a relief comparing it with Musk idea of "daisy-chained" Tesla Semis going down the highway in an autopilot, delivering cargo at "10% of train's cost"

For what it's worth, the Tesla Semi also has much better visibility than conventional semi trucks.

how do you know this?

Does it factor in road maintenance or is it socialized cost as usual?

> Does it factor in road maintenance or is it socialized cost as usual?

It most likely does not factor in road maintenance, and the railroad doesn't factor in their maintenance either.

Now you're telling me airplane fares also don't include airport construction? I'm beside myself!

> the railroad doesn't factor in their maintenance either.

Aren't railroads (in the US at least) maintained by the railroad companies? If so, they are almost certainly pricing in maintenance to their shipping costs.

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