Re:A Tragic Loss
by mschuster91 on Friday July 01, 2016 @05:20AM
(#12014754)
With the pedestrians and bikers, I mainly meant when large trucks are driving in the cities to serve e.g. supermarkets - one I worked at, right in the center of Munich, had a huge 40-ton truck serving it each day.
It's dangerous as hell, but impractical to do any other way...
Maybe it was just my neck of Europe then. Trucks would only go to supermarkets on the big roads where there's strict physical separation between traffic and everyone else. They're also position on the edge of the city next to the ring freeway so that trucks have a short path from freeway to supermarket.
Deliveries inside the city are done with smaller lorries which are a bit safer maybe. If not safer, definitely more practical on tight inner-city streets.
I don't think it's practical for trucks to be designed as pedestrian safe as modern city buses are, so it's better to keep them away from pedestrians as much as possible.
As for pedestrians and bikers, I really really like Europe's solution to that problem: Pedestrian and Bikers are illegal on the freeway. Big trucks are made strongly and forcefully impractical in cities, towns, and villages.
It's crazy that I live in downtown SF and there are huge freight trucks driving past my bedroom window every day.