U.S. AMERICAN Reacts to the Difference Between European and American Trucks

I’m a truck driver in the UK.Those soft side trailers that you refer to we call them curtainsider trailers.The reason for the canvas sides is so that we pull back the curtains so that the trailer can be loaded by a forklift on each side leading for a quick efficient loading. The closed curtain keeps the load dry compared to a flatbed trailer. A curtainsider trailer also has rear barn doors for deliveries that require a bay to reversed up to. A curtainsider trailer is a very versatile trailer that is perfect for most general trucking use in Europe .

A major factor that the video doesn't mention is Europe's extended train network. It's a lot more efficient to transport large groups of cargo over long distances by train, and then using a truck for the last few hours. Of course that doesn't mean cross-continent jobs don't happen, but they're a lot rarer than in the US.

One of the reasons for the specified total length in Europe got to do with having a unified solution for all the ferries. With a max total length loading ferries and planning ferry load balancing becomes relatively straight forward; the computer system knows how much room is left on a ferry's car decks at all times.

Trucks something we are proud of here in little Sweden 🇸🇪 Scania Volvo Power 💪

13:25 That situation is called in Germany an "elephant's race". It's now forbidden in most places.

To point out, every European truck in this video has a sleeper cab. And furthermore, although truckers in Europe aren't generally owner operators, the long haulers still live in their trucks for weeks or months at a time. The distances from the Mediterranean, let's say, to the north of Finland or Norway are vast and there are tons of truckers who work on these routes. It also takes a different skill set to work on an international trucking route in Europe compared to the US, for example you would have to speak multiple foreign languages more or less fluently.

Having driven trucks in the UK and the US, I feel that I have an understanding of the factors governing both places. If I were to go into all the factors that are currently in my head I would still be writing this next week! As you rightly said, the size of the roads is a defining factor when it comes to design. Pretty much every tractor unit I have ever driven in the UK has a drivers bunk in it, some even have a top bunk too. The wheel layout is very different as well. You will notice that with the US trailers the wheels are all the way at the back where as on a European trailer the front wheels are almost half way up. This aids manouverability when used with a European standard tractor unit. The turning circle of a European tractor unit is very much tighter than a US unit. You can drive a European unit forwards into a jackknife. Also the visibility is such that the driver can put their head out of the window and see down the side of the trailer rather than having smoke stacks obscuring the direct view this also means that the cab is wider where the driver sits. The wheel positioning on the US tricks is to distribute the weight over as much road as possible. I discovered when I was delivering cement to road building projects in Texas and Louisiana how shallow the roads are there. This leaves them very liable to subsidence and they would not stand up to European trucks very well. I haveany other things I could point out but I have a life to live!🤣

Trucks actually are allowed in all lanes (if there is no sign explicitly baning them), but no vehicle is allowed in an other lane than the most right lane, if it does not takeover an other vehikle. And as 40-ton-trucks (maximum weight in Germany for trucks that have no special permition) have a general speed limit on Autobahns of 80kmh (50mph), they are generally the slowest participants in trafic and therefore usually in the most right lane

At least some European lorries have a sleeping cabin. I once came across a British lorry driver who regularly travelled over to mainland Europe for his job and the only thing he got really animated about was his lorry and all its wonderful features.

There is one more big difference not mentioned in the video. In Europe, if the truck delivers goods from, let's say, Portugal to Finland, most likely several ferries will be used on the route where the driver will eat, sleep and relax and the total driving distance will be significantly reduced. Northern Spain - UK, UK - Scandinavia, Northern Germany - Baltics etc. That's not the case for the U.S where they just drive it all.

Your maximum weight in the US is 80,000lbs, 36,288kgs, in Europe max weight is 40,000kgs,88,200lbs and in the UK max weight is 44,000kgs which is 97,000lbs and in Scandinavia in winter I believe the timber trucks can go up to 100 tonnes. The curtain sider or continental tilt is used due its lightweight and versatility ie groupage loads or fold up the curtains and roof and you can carry excavators or steel etc on the same trailer.

Being a trucker myself, I like the looks of the US trucks better. But, Europeans are spending as much time in their trucks as Americans do, cause we drive all across Europe. At lest a vast majority of truck drivers do. It's actually a problem, because if you need to find a place to park for the night, most of the time, you will search for hours. Because parking lots for trucks "Rastplätze" are overpopulated. Those truck track races actually happen that often in Europe, that we do have a name for it in Germany. They called "Elefantenrennen (elephant races)" and it's the same damn thing. So, regardless the rules, it happens everywhere. most of the time on hills, where trucks with heavy loads slow down. But there is another truck behind it, that goes 2 km/h faster and feels the need to pass. I am guilty of that myself from time to time. But there actually is a reason for that. Because of the weight, it would take ages to get to a acceptable amount of speed once you hit the break. So it FEELS like, it would make much more sense to get passed that slower truck. In the end, it might not make more sense, to be honest. But you know... humans :D

We have soft sides (Plane und Spriegel) and hard sides (Koffer) esp. all coolers will be hard-sided. We have the model where the trailer (Auflieger) is over the back part of the actual truck (Zugmaschine) like what you normally see in the US and we have the truck and trailer (a separate trailer behind the actual truck = Hängerzug). The latter one is very practical in narrow environments as you can leave it outside e.g. on a wide street in an industrial area and just drive with the shorter truck alone into the city center or historical old town. In Germany, trucks have a speed limit of 60 km/h on overland roads and 80 km/h on the Autobahn (and all other roads with similar features = min of two lanes in every direction with a physical separation between directions). In Germany, all vehicles (including trucks) have to go 20 km/h faster than the vehicle they want to overtake. Nonetheless, we often have situations where trucks try to overtake each other with a speed difference of less than 20 km/h and we call that "Elefantenrennen" (elephants' race).

Advance Driving Instructor here, we have the same problem with trucks in 2 lane dual carriageways/motorways trying to overtake one another causing huge queues behind them, our highway code states that in this situation the slower truck being overtaken must consider slowing down to help the truck overtaking pass you, not law, but it is a highway rule, and for those that adhere to it, it does help. Great post. 👏🏻👏🏻

Hint: EVEN CARS are REQUIRED to "stay in the right lane if there is no traffic" in Germany [I got pulled over by the cops on an empty 3-lane Autobahn in the middle of the night, just a little "finger waggling" though]. The reason is simple: there might be a MUCH FASTER car coming behind you, but it also leaves a lane for overtaking.

Nate, ohhh mate you haven't seen a BIG truck until you've seen an Australian road train! They can be as long as 53.5 metres which is over 175 feet long! Our truck road rules sound very similar to Europe's have a nice day!

"Lease their trucks from a company"? Never heard of that business model, but that would still count as an owner-operator, I'd think. In Europe, however, the vast majority of truckers are employees. The trucks are owned by the company. And while there are still long-distance truckers that spend some time sleeping in their cabs, the typical length I've heard of is one week - they're usually back home on the weekend. So they don't need quite as much comfort in their temporary quarters, and they're not the ones paying for the truck, anyway.

In my experience, Euro trucks need to be able to get into even small rural villages and fishing villages in remote fjords. The roads can be absolutely terrible, more narrow than you can imagine.

Here in europe we have strict rules about how long we are allowed drive but it also is stict with where we have our rest. Day 1 through 5 we can have our daily rest in the cab but for day 6 and 7 we are not allowed to be in the cab. So in general we get to go home on weekends.

In North America tandem axles on a semi is the norm. In Europe single axles are used far more often than tandems. This is because Europe allows more weight per axle that North America does. Soft side trailers are normally used for multi deliveries and pickups because the load can be placed anywhere along the trailer and loaded or unloaded with a forklift. Soft sides are actually gaining popularity in North America for this very reason and the fact that the trailers tend to be lighter so more freight can be loaded. One of the reasons for sleepers that was not mentioned is security. Thieves are far less likely to try and break into a trailer when a truck has a sleeper simply because there is normally a driver in the truck. There are wireless alarms available that are triggered by the trailer doors being opened and these alarms transmit to a monitor in the cab. If the monitor sounds a trucker can call the law on a cellphone. In the US, the driver might also be armed and confront the thieves with it. B-trains (two trailers) are fairly common in North America and can run up to 90 feet in length with a maximum cargo load of 62.3 tons on 7 axles. In Europe a B-train can run up to 82.9 feet in length with a maximum cargo load of 60 tons based on 6 axles. Different axle combinations can increase or decrease the total gross weight. The advent and use of "driverless" trucks is being tested in North America so companies can eliminate the cost of a driver(s). I personally think that these units will still be required to have a driver despite what others might say. My reasoning is simple. The possibility of a malfunction could leave 40 tons of truck and trailer careening down the road with no one able to stop it. The tests that have been run in California proves my point. There have been two fatalities to date. The problem is that the trucks can recognize a car stopped in front of them and act accordingly. They do not however recognize motorcycles or bicycles.