newmercman:
Two weeks to go through Nevada, Arizona & New Mexico! What was he driving? A horse & cart There’s only 1 state that you can’t do from end to end in 1 day & that’s Texas, Montana is a bit tight running rest to east & vice versa, but it can be done, I think the 2 weeks thing has been taken out of context.
The longest journey possible with a starting & finishing point in the USA would be Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the Florida Keys, that’s around 5000miles, at average speed of 50mph (easy) you could do that in 9 days, 10 with a 36hr reset.
A round trip from Denio, Nevada to Hobbs, New Mexico (the furthest points away from each other in those states) is only 2700 miles, at a 50mph average speed you could do that in 5 legal days.
newmercman he definitely said 2 weeks each way and even if he meant coast to coast or Alaska to the Keys not just those states mentioned he would’nt last long in the job and I’ve never even done international work with a wagon but I know that from just driving all over the states with a car and watching the trucks running at a decent rate of knots although nothing like the speeds they ran at in the 1970’s by all accounts and maybe even that run across Texas might have been possible then?.Although I got nicked at 90mph in a 65 limit.No big deal after the trooper realised that it was just a brit and a fine back at the court house.Those distances over there are’nt a lot different to the longer European runs bearing in mind the faster speeds which trucks run at there and not as much,relative to European ones as,wire and S wraith seem to think.
Those distances over there are’nt a lot different to the longer European runs bearing in mind the faster speeds which trucks run at there and not as much,relative to European ones as,wire and S wraith seem to think.
What do you mean by “as wire seems to think?”.
I know exactly what i am saying. I am from Yorkshire and my driving career goes back 15 years before i emigrated to Canada.
Here is a straight and simple fact for you using the two examples that you yourself mentioned.
From London to Sicily Via Reims, Metz, Strasbourg, Basel and Bologna… = 2648kms.
New York city to Los Angeles the most direct route…=4443kms.
That is nearly twice as far. How can you think that they are “not a lot different”?
Wire you’re bang on the money, Carryfast I know what you mean though, Wire & I could easily do a NYC to LA in the same amount of days it would take to do a London to Palermo, the only thing that would be different for us would be the extra hours we can drive daily & the higher speed limits.
The thing that got Wire excited, I think, is that people seem to think that trucking in the USA is all belting along an interstate at 80mph, sorry to burst your bubble but it isn’t, getting a ticket as a British licence holder may be an inconvenience, but as a professional driver over here it can have serious implications to our driving licence & therefore our living.
Having travelled extensively in Europe & driven all over the USA & Canada I can assure you that the mountains we have to go over here are every bit as mountainous as the Alps & the Appenines, the Apalachian chain & the Rockies are hard work, they may be interstates but a mountain is a mountain, no matter which route you take you have some serious terrain to get over. Going to Sicily may have been hard work over 20 years ago before all the Autoroutes/Autostradas, but a trip between London & Sicily would see you on a multi lane road until you got off the boat in Messina, although I haven’t been to Sicily since the mid 90s so that could even be a multi lane all the way now too.
Wire & I both have trucks that will comfortably do 80mph all day long, but both of us choose to cruise at 65mph, the fact they we could (& do) cover 4443kms in the time that it would take a European driver to cover 2648kms just goes to show you how much difference 10mph & 2 extra hours driving each day can make to a journey.
BTW this isn’t off topic as we COULD have a 45’ 9’6" box behind us
Those distances over there are’nt a lot different to the longer European runs bearing in mind the faster speeds which trucks run at there and not as much,relative to European ones as,wire and S wraith seem to think.
What do you mean by “as wire seems to think?”.
I know exactly what i am saying. I am from Yorkshire and my driving career goes back 15 years before i emigrated to Canada.
Here is a straight and simple fact for you using the two examples that you yourself mentioned.
From London to Sicily Via Reims, Metz, Strasbourg, Basel and Bologna… = 2648kms.
New York city to Los Angeles the most direct route…=4443kms.
That is nearly twice as far. How can you think that they are “not a lot different”?
I said a ‘return’ trip to Sicily,= 5000 kms+, not one way and from Northern England/Scotland you can add another 600 kms-1000kms+ to that return trip.We also still run to Eastern Europe,Turkey and sometimes places like Kazack from here which is even further although it’s nearly all been cornered by the foreign operators now.The proof of the matter is would you prefer to run coast to coast across the States under US DOT regs or would you prefer to be back here either running that same type of mileage to Sicily and back at 85 kmh on the flat with a tacho instead of a log book,or worse local multi drop, because if it was that good over here we all would’nt prefer to be over there.By the way newmercman I agree with most of what you said there too but the fact is that after you’ve got through those North American mountain ranges,which I agree in some cases make the Alps look like hills,you can still go further,faster,to make up some time and under US regs you have fer less chance of being done for anything by the law because those laws a far more flexible from the point of view of truck driving?.Whereas that run down to Southern Italy will be on a road more suited for running at US speeds but with a limiter set at 85 kmh and hours regs which can criminalise a driver for going 2 minutes over what he’s allowed to drive which in the states would be ‘lost’ on the log book.But wherever we are if we let the rail freight operators take the work that obviously means less work/miles/money for us and more drivers out of a job?.
There’s only 1 state that you can’t do from end to end in 1 day & that’s Texas, Montana is a bit tight running rest to east & vice versa, but it can be done, I think the 2 weeks thing has been taken out of context.
