Every day when driving to work, the traffic reports always mention a broken-down truck blocking a motorway or a truck that has crashed. Today a jack-knifed truck caused a queue of 17 miles.
What I cannot understand is why so many heavy commercial vehicles break down every day. There are only 420,000 trucks on the road, compared to 28 million cars. Each heavy truck has to be checked every six weeks. And yet they always seem to breakdown during the rush hour.
Of course we only hear about trucks because they cause such chaos when they do fail. But cars rarely break down, so why trucks do are so frequently mentioned every morning. After all diesel engines are simpler than diesel.
I have never come across any statistics on this. The truck manufacturers must have them because they usually have to send out a recovery vehicle. But they probably don’t want to let on.
But it is a serious issue as it gives the industry a bad name. Everyone in a queue will be cursing the broken down truck.
The truck manufacturers are keen to tell us how long it takes to recover a stranded vehicle. Instead we need industry figures on how often their vehicles break down. They must know. Maybe we could ask it during the Motor Transport Fleet Truck of the Year judging.
Of course a jack-knifed truck is not a break down but an accident. But these days it is easily avoidable. Every truck should now be fitted with ESP (or similar) that makes roll-overs and jack-knifes a thing of the past. It should be standard equipment.

Let me know if you know why so many trucks break down.