Initial Study On Safety Hazards by Heavy Transportation On Malaysian Roads

Abstract

A pilot study was done to evaluate several road safety issues in Malaysia that arerelated to heavy transportation. The project consisted of survey, analyticalcalculations, and computer simulations. The survey was conducted to investigate the use of current active safety features like the warning signs, which include lights, light reflective stickers, and the color of canvas used on heavy vehicles. There were 55 responses collected that showed visibility of trucks was a problem in the dark.Fortunately, light reflective stickers could be an aid to passively illuminate the heavy vehiclesand this has become lawin Malaysia.Another issue is the slow speed like 40km/h commonly maintained by heavy vehicles when climbing up hills with heavy load, whichisa hazard since being too slow may cause a more severe rear-end collision damage. Additionally, computer impact analyses were also done by using ABAQUS, where severalrear-end collisions betweena car and a heavy vehicle were studied. Hence, aconclusion can be made that the slower the speed of a heavy vehicle, the higher the impactexperienced by the car colliding from behind the truck.It is recommended that a longtrailertruckhas about 310kW of enginepower to pull a maximum load of 30,000 kg. Trucks are also suggested to maintain at least 60 km/h speedduring hill climbing with a much lower load.