Comment by dralley
9 hours ago
The damage scales with weight. Cars cause less damage because they are lighter. Heavier cars still cause greater impact.
9 hours ago
The damage scales with weight. Cars cause less damage because they are lighter. Heavier cars still cause greater impact.
Damage scales with the 4th power of weight.
From what I can find, the standard weight limit for a truck in 20 tons per axle (less when multiple axles are close together).
In contrast, the average weight for a car is a bit under 4 tons (even for SUVs). Even a pickup truck is under 5.4 tons. Since these have 2 axles, that comes out to every class except loaded freight trucks having under 2.7 tons per axle on average. So a freight truck acting at the legal limit (without tandem axles) would be over 7.4 times as heavy per axle as a passenger pickup truck. Applying the 4th power law, this means a single maximally loaded truck causes about 3000 times (300,000%) as much damage as an average pickup truck; and 10,000 times (1,000,000%) as much as an average SUV. In contrast, the difference in damage caused by an average SUV and an average sedan is only about 40%
https://www.autoinsurance.com/guide/average-car-weight/
It’s extremely super linear, supposedly 4th power of axle weight. So it doesn’t make sense to argue over the relative size of mice when there are elephants around.