The concept itself was simple. Add a 600-mm 'bonnet' at the front of a cabover tractor in order to absorb the energy in a frontal collision with a passenger car. And as a result the survivable collision speed could actually rise from 56 to 90 km/h. At the time the safety-minded Swedes reckoned that: "Adjustments to the legislation could encourage truck operators to invest in safer trucks." Or to put it another way we'd need more than 16.5m on an artic.
Back in 2003 Scania even showed a fifth-scale model of the concept truck, complete with the short bonnet which was based around a structure that crumpled and absorb as much energy as possible in the event of a head-on smash with a passenger car. It looked rather smart as you can see. But alas an a lack what do you think happened....now click through here for another one of Biglorryblog's 'lost causes..'
Sadly despite yours truly raving about it not much more was hear...not least from the Brussels Bureaucrats who true to form never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And when it came to missing an opportunity, an increase in overall artic lengths would have meant we would have seen a lot more of this truck...
Yes the wonderful Scania eXc or as it's more commonly known, the Longline cab. Now this is how drivers should spend the night out in a truck.... and if Brussels Bureaucrats had been willing to give you an extra 1.4m on the length of an artic this is what you could have had to sleep in.....am I the only one to think that the people who run our lives don't live in anything approaching the real world?
Comments (1)
Close, the people running our lives don't have to live in a truck all week !!
Posted by Donald Munro | September 21, 2008 2:44 AM
Posted on September 21, 2008 02:44