Runaway-Truck Ramps – Sand Traps For Trucks
Recommended Reading: Runaway-Truck Ramps Explained – Feature
As a long-time Colorado resident, I’ve become accustomed to seeing runaway truck ramps…they’re all over the place in the mountains. However, there are a lot of people in the rest of the USA (these people are often called “flat-landers”) that don’t know what a runaway truck ramp is or what it’s supposed to do. They see a picture of a ramp like the one below and say “What the heck is that thing?”
If you’re one of these people that doesn’t know about these ramps, Car and Driver has answered your question in great detail.
If you already know about this sort of thing like I do, you might find the following tidbits interesting:
- In Great Britian, these ramps are called “Escape Bays”
- Ramp effectiveness is measured in “Retarding Horspepower” (no nitrous jokes please)
- The inventor of the runaway truck ramp is apparently unknown
Read the rest…
From Car and Driver
My Little Runaway: A sand trap that trucks sometimes have to drive into.
There you are, driving your rig down a mountain pass—loaded to the legal max of 80,000 pounds—grooving to Little Feat’s “Willin’.” Suddenly, you notice your speed getting away from you, but you can’t downshift your nonsynchro tranny. You hit the brakes, but they’re fading. They, like 95 percent of all heavy-truck brakes, are drums. You’re in trouble.
