Long Combination Vehicles
The weights and sizes of vehicles that are allowed to be on Ontario roads is governed by the Highway Traffic Act. The Ministry of Transportation has begun a pilot project that will allow “Long Combination Vehicles” (LCVs) to bring our regulations into harmony with those of the province of Quebec. Individual municipalities may (if they wish) decide to allow these vehicles “to progress to destinations up to two kilometres beyond the freeway system.”
The graphic on the right depicts just some of the many combinations of LCVs that can be found on Canadian roads (click to see an enlarged graphic).
In a 2009/05/11 report to the Environment and Transportation Committee (ETC), Patrick McNally (the General Manager of Environmental & Engineering Services) states that “In Ontario, a LCV is described as made up of a tractor pulling two full-length semi-trailers up to 40 metres overall length.”
Given the danger that traffic on London roads already presents for pedestrians and bicyclists, I am more than a bit concerned that ETC approved this.
Mr. McNally: “This recommendation is supportive of the city’s desire to be a transportation gateway.”
Gord Hume: “I think this makes all kinds of sense… LCVs have a better safety record than single trucks.”
Because the recommendation got the approval of ETC it now goes to tomorrow’s City Council meeting.
© Fowler Media
I don’t see how longer trucks will make the roads any more dangerous – wider, maybe. But dangerous drivers are dangerous drivers no matter what their vehicle.
It’s not so much the trucks or their drivers that has me concerned, but the drivers of the other vehicles on the road. There’s little enough tolerance now of anything that slows them down, and these trucks are apt to cause them even greater frustration and reckless behaviour.
Aside from potentially being a bit slower to get going (I can’t imagine it would be any worse than a dump truck) what makes you think these will be any worse than regular-sized transports?
Admittedly I haven’t given it a lot of thought. But intuitively something tells me that they may be problematic. Slower yes, esp. from being stopped at intersections. And turns as Jesse mentioned, esp. someplace like Commissioners/Leathorne which increasingly is being used by truckers (to avoid the signalized Adelaide/Commissioners intersection?) and where I’ve seen many near-misses. Also, although a bit off-topic re inner-city transport, I think there’s too much stuff being shipped by truck that would better be sent by rail.
Having looked into it further, the weight restrictions on the new vehicles would be the same as other trucks so there should be no difference in normal traffic flow in terms of start/stop times.
I just don’t think the size of a truck would matter in terms of it’s danger – getting hit by a big truck would be the same as getting hit by a little one.
Ok, scratch the concern about longer getting going from stops at intersections. That’s good to know. And as I pointed out previously, it’s not so much the trucks/truckers that concern me with respect to pedestrian safety, but the *other* (non-professional) drivers whose frustration is apt to increase because of them.
But how would that even happen? They have just as much of a shot at reducing frustration because fewer transports would need to be on the road. And ideally, you wouldn’t have pedestrians where they are approved to travel anyway (on roads that don’t have many intersections – 400-series highways and parkways).
I’m not sure that so many transports “need” to be on the road (as opposed t rail/ship) but fewer transports
wouldought to reduce driver frustration, agreed.You’re also right that pedestrians on 400-series and parkways should be a non-issue. But as I mentioned to Jesse, my expectation is that the 2 km. restriction would likely quickly come under pressure soon after the “pilot” period ended and it became province-wide law.
I wish I had the time to check into why they’re not allowed in Michigan. I’m guessing that there must be more concerns than the ones that have occurred to me so far.
Surely these things aren’t going to be allowed to drive on city streets! Highways maybe but can you imagine them turning at corners etc?
At the moment it’s only a pilot project so there’s a restriction in-city of 2 kms from the provincial highways. But once the horses leave the starting gate it’s pretty hard to reign them in sometimes.
Jesse – that’s what the 2km from the freeway system thing is all about. The MTO would be severely limiting where these vehicles can go and what roads they can travel on:
These trucks are for transportation, not deliveries. You can read more about it here:
http://www.ogra.org/lib/db2file.asp?fileid=25002