Semi-Trucks?

[STLBILL]

Hi guys:

 

Hopefully someone is as bored as me and will help me answer this.

 

Modern Marvels, a television show on the History Channel, claims there are 5,000,000 semi-trucks licensed in the United States. If all these trucks were operated in convoy fashion they would be about 95,000 miles long. That is enough to go around the Earth 5 times at average United States latitudes.

 

Doesn't this seem impossible?

 

I'm basing this on 100 feet per truck including a safe following distance. In my opinion that is a severe underestimation.

 

That's a lot of trucks. Factor in all the other vehicles and it's a wonder we can get anywhere at all (safely).

 

Better yet: The total United States land area is estimated at 3,537,441 square miles. That's 1.4 trucks per square mile across the entire country. If you subtract the 256,000 miles of inland water the number increases to 1.52 Keep in mind this includes every inch including mountains of sparsely populated areas in Alaska and Wyoming. I am scared to think of the number if we plot this on the much smaller national highway system.

 

Therefore, in conclusion I profess that if it truely "...takes me 40 acres to turn this rig around" these drivers must be really good! Because statisticly speaking every 40 acres in this country has 3.5 trucks (3.8 if you include inland water area).

 

 

-Bill

Edited March 27, 2005 by STLBILL

[FORMULASPEED]

Im followin you, but I dont get what you want to know? You asked how many trucks then said there is 5 million.

roughly 100k in each state.

[locogato11283]

damn you got alot of time on your hands...

[NugShee]

First of all out of all the trucks less then half are running during any given time. 95% of trucking companies weather it be log trucks, dump trucks or just long haul, all have extra trucks that are either being repaired or are for special use and only get driven once a month. So with those stats you can take away a considerable amount of total trucks running. You also are crunching numbers here using "air"miles. When speaking road miles then its a whole diferent ballgame. at some areas there could be 8 to 9 road miles per square land mile. Its amazing that when adding up the numbers without considering certain facts that some things can seem merely impossible.

[blk02banshee]

You have to figure in how many trucks that are parked, side by side, in docks, truck stops, etc, at any given time. I bet they could wrap around the earth 5 times. I wonder if they were talking about trucks with trailers, or trucks and trailers, because there's a hell of a lot more trailers, than there is trucks to pull them.

Your mathmatics gives me a headache , you got me thinking too hard, I'm going to bed.

[wesw]

ok you figure companies like sneidner (spelling) which is the largest private fleet has several thousand trucks.

then you have jb hunt, swift, werner, covenant, us express, this are some other huge ones. with a shit load of trucks

 

most trailers they pull are 53 ft long, tractor are 260-270 in wheel base

roughly 75 ft long.

 

so their are a bunch of trucks out there, and what is bad the companines cant keep any good help around so they are hiring more people. and with new dot rules and log books rules there are going to be more trucks out there.

 

what is amazing is the austrailia road train, it pulls like 25 trailers behind it pulling coal and other ore out ot the mines to the plants. that thing is cool

[KoooPSD]

Damn you must be smart.

[frocashmoney24]

I like this kinda shit, Its mind boggling how many trucks there are in this world.

['99350t]

also thats all based on lisensed truck.....i bet that number might double if it included ones being chopped or sitting in a parkin lot some wheres....

[KoooPSD]

I like this kinda shit, Its mind boggling how many trucks there are in this world.

345934[/snapback]

 

 

Yea it is interesting to think about.

[t_speaker31]

wow I thought i had too much time on my hands