On Wed, 09 Mar 2005 12:13:44 -0800, "Bill Bonde ( ''The chamber was in confusion, all the voices shouting loud'' )"
Rail is good ... but it too is an expensive system to maintain and is hardly accident-free. Put more trains on the track and you'll have more derailments and more people struck on the crossings. Also, rail simply doesn't go everywhere - trucks can. What trucks consume in fuel and infrastructure they repay through flexibility - anytime, anywhere.
You complain about truckers falling asleep - and we all know it DOES happen regularly - but if you look at the accident stats you'll immediately discover that the biggest problem with trucks isn't the trucks or truck drivers ... it's moronic civvies driving like idiots in their little 4-wheelers. They constantly cut-off trucks or forget that trucks can't stop on a dime. Most 18-wheeler wrecks can be traced to a 4-wheeler.
I suppose that in SOME places, a 'big trucks only' highway lane might be an answer. Alas, outside of metropolitan areas, most interstate highways are just four-laners and you can't restrict the non- commercial traffic to just ONE lane each direction.
Anyway, it *is* a toss-up between truck and rail and is likely to remain so. It *should* remain so because the two systems tend to complement each other rather than actually compete.
