Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/466315
COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 2015 31 What to hit: deer or guardrail? If a deer jumps in front of your truck, hopefully you hit nothing but brakes. But is there any connection be- tween deer accidents and crosswinds? It does not seem related, does it? Actually it is. Let's start from air drag. Air drag is like a turbulent "tornado" pulling the vehicle backwards and consuming about half of your fuel. Crosswinds add to the price tag and claim up to 40% more fuel on top of it by creating another "tornado" that pushes you sideways. At high winds you waste up to 70% of your fuel money to fi ght air drag. About 32% of truck accidents are also turbulence-related, since it destabilizes a truck and increases driver fatigue. A deer comes here. Tired driver is less likely to react fast. How expensive are crosswinds? Average trucker pays over $3,000 extra in fuel yearly to overcome them. Are there any solutions? One of them is VorBlade™ vortex generators, introduced by Avantechs, Inc. The technology is well-proven in the industry and verifi ed by the EPA SmartWay. The VorBlade System slices harmful turbulent "tornadoes" around the truck creating a self-adaptive invisible shield that remark- ably reduces air drag and the detrimental impacts of crosswinds. A few windy days might cost you more than the VorBlade™ Cab System. Stay safe, gain stability and don't let your money be gone with the wind! the lower rolling-resistance performance required by SmartWay, the tires may wear faster or be more susceptible to cutting and tearing than tires designed with more traditional tread compounds to maximize wear performance," he says. Another difference is that some Smart- Way-verified tires, particularly drive tires, may have shallower tread depths. DeBolt says Roadmaster's SmartWay-verified RM851(EM) and RM256 drive tires are de- signed with tread depths and compounds that offer comparable or even better perfor- mance than their nonverified counterparts. Tire position also plays a critical role. "On a tractor-trailer combination, the steer axle position tires contribute 15 to 20 percent to fuel economy," Gunn says. "Dive axle position tires contribute between 30 to 40 percent, while trailer-axle position tires contribute 40 to 50 percent to the vehicle's overall fuel economy." Because trailer position tires represent the most wheel positions for the aver- age North American fleet, selecting the best-qualified trailer tires will have the most impact on fuel consumption, Gunn says. "The first priority for a fleet interested in saving money is to start moving into SmartWay-verified trailer tires and con- tinuing with steers and drives," he says. "But while fuel economy has a greater impact on the bottom line of high-speed long-haul operations, it also plays a significant role in regional and high-load on-off operations, where SmartWay philosophy and criteria can be applied as well." Giti Tire USA says the SmartWay-verified 16-ply version of its GT Radial GSL213FS long-haul steer tire is designed for higher front-end axles and gross vehicle weight. Cooper Tires offers a full range of Roadmas- ter tires designed to meet the SmartWay program's low-rolling-resistance criteria, helping to improve fuel economy.