Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

Behind feeders? Trailers don't have fenders. Also many trailers only have an 18 inch kingpin depth. I've seen 12 inch on a lowboy.

 

Those drop axles carry roughly 10k pounds each

 

ok, but trailer has to go to end of tires, you cant have tires 3ft behind trailer. so it is bit less than 37ft

 

36 is a common short trailer.

 

In Belgium it is 10 t and 12 t.

That's not quite correct, there are also rules on tandem axles and tridem axles. Let's assume the 8x4 has two steering axles at the front, but with an axle spacing of more than 1.80 m (6 feet). Then these axles are seen as two singles axles, so they can have a load of 2 x 10t. If the rear axles have an axle spacing of 1.40m ( > 1.30 m and < 1.80 m), then that tandem has a maximum load of 19 t. So in total 39 t, and not 43 t. With an 8x8 it would be 2 x 11,5t + 19t = 42 t.

With a tridem at the rear it will be 10 t + 27 t = 37 t (for 8x4), or 11.5 t + 27 t = 38.5 t (for 8x8), assuming that the rear axles have a spacing of > 1.3 m and < 1.8 m.

 

i know for your laws, i was thinking on 8x4 wide spread, it will be impossible to get 11.5+11.5+9.5+9.5 unless it is some crane or something

 

Swedish bridge law

 

The previous sentence is about a 4 axle truck (not semi) for international traffic with two steering axles at the front. According to the max. axle loads, such a truck can have a maximum weight of 10 + 10 + 20 = 40t (88,000 lbs). The distance between the first and the last axle in this case has to be 40/5 = 8 m (24 feet). According to the bridge law, this distance should be 21 m (69 feet) in the US, disregarding the fact that it is 8000 lbs over weight.

That's correct. With a standard EU 4 x 2 tractor, you would need to have a tridem under the trailer, so that's also a standard EU trailer. According to the bridge law, this distance should be 22.5 m or 74 feet, again disregarding the 17,000 lbs over weight.

 

I agree, these are legal limits.

 

You must be doing new math ...... I can’t follow your calculations... but it’s been a long day.