Why do so many Americans hate European trucks?

You can break up these bridge laws into two sections:

1. The Single Axle Weight and the Tandem Axle Weight. Obviously both have to do with bridges, but just as much with the road pavement. Too much load on the pavement, and the pavement will crack. That is why states and countries may also have rules on tyre sizes to protect the pavement. They may also have rules about the spacing of axles within tandems or tridems, in connection with the load on those axles. All countries have rules on axle loads. This is nothing special, be it that the load limits are quite low in the US. This is not what I'm referring to.
   
2. the Federal Bridge Gross Weight Formula. That is the infamous formula that dictates that the US has very long trucks. This formula is purely there for your weak bridges, it has nothing to do with the roads themselves. I give you a quote from a pdf that explains the whole bridge law regulations: "The weight of groups of two or more axles must be checked against the bridge formula to ensure that they meet Federal weight limit requirements and that the allowed gross and axle weights are correlated with the spacing and number of axles to prevent extreme overstressing of highway bridges." Other countries may have regulations on this matter, but nothing remotely as complex or restrictive as the US. It is this formula that I'm referring to.

Yes, I fully understand what you mean. However it has no impact on what I mean, as I've explained in point 2.

Contrary to US style trucks, EU style cabovers can be found all over the world, in all kind of environments. So it is very unlikely that circumstances in the US are so extraordinary that EU trucks will not work well there. Except for the sleeper size problem (that can be easily fixed), I see no reason why they can't be used.

 

At least where I am at we would have used belly dump tractor trailers on a job like that one in the video. By the time those first two dumped we would have rolled 6 trucks through. Just a different way of doing things. Was on one job where we ran trains that allowed us to gross 132k pounds.

@Caesar it's not about the superiority of one over the other, it is about the right tool for the job.

How many types of hammers do you think there are in the world? Although they can do multiple different jobs, they are better suited for what they were designed for. For instance, you can drive an upholstery tack with a 10 pound sledge hammer but your fingers would probably like it better using an upholstery hammer.

Is one superior to the other? In that particular instance yes. But change the job to tearing out a wall and you have a different result.

 

this kind of work is very rare over here, also you will never see this much space so running belly trailer is not option, also you dont have always this kind of load that can be loaded in one.
this truck will be today at this site, tomorrow at excavation, 3days latter bringing rocks to site etc.

so i would say it is universal hammer.
we dont have such thing as belly trailers, few people haul sand or some rock fractions as backload in cement silo trailers.

 

how much weight does this one get?
is there possibility to get front driven axle from poclain ex factory on any US brand like that MB from my post have

 

Yeah, you see more belly dump and side dump trailers here. The main thing is versatility of the tractor. You can drop the dump trailer and hook to anything else. With a dump truck you are limited to what you can haul to keep the truck moving.

Trailers are cheap and having multiple different types is not unheard of.

 

3-side tipper, with possibility to load pallets

 

Too short of a trailer for a full payload on pallets. Another example of a tool that does not fit. Besides you normally dump the load and scoot back for another one. Usually within 50 miles one way.

 

they are mostly used to load concrete blocks or similar heavy elements, like for chimney, sidewalk curbs etc. otherwise it is really too short

 

Why not load those blocks on a flatbed? And unload with a forklift. Dumping them must break quite a few.

 

Since I'm an idiot, I like to make some calculations.

This is a trailer with a 27t (60,000 lbs) payload, and a tarra of 6,6t (14,500 lbs). It is meant for a standard EU semi with a GCW of 40t.
Let's assume it is loaded with concrete blocks. Concrete has a specific mass of 2.4t / m³, so it can load 27/2.4 = 11.25m³ of concrete.
The floor surface is 7.15m x 2.42m = 17.303m²
If the trailer would be loaded with one exact fitting block of concrete, it should be 11.25 / 17.303 = 0.65m (2' 2") high.
Seems to me this trailer is well designed for its apparent purpose.

The distance from the kingpin to the last axle is 5.8m (19 feet).
When we hook it to 4x2 EU tractor, the distance from the rear axle of the truck to the last rear axle of the trailer becomes 5.34m ( 17.5 feet).
So we have a load of 27 + 6.6 = 33.6t or 74,000 lbs on 4 axles over 17,5 feet. In the US that 17,5 feet should be 48 feet in order to comply with the bridge law.

So that trailer should be almost three times as long ....... No wonder you think it's short.