TECHNO-TRAILERS * USA: SmartTruck TopKit

* South Carolina - SmartTruck TopKit offers 'Near-invisible" aero improvement for trailers

  --  SmartTruck Systems’ TopKit Fairing System, an innovative approach to aerodynamically increasing long-haul trucking fuel mileage, was confirmed to reduce aerodynamic drag by 10.5 percent in an independent study conducted by the SimCenter at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, it was announced today. The research independently confirms and quantifies TopKit’s performance in directly reducing the low pressure wake that creates drag behind all dry van trailers, refrigerated trailers, and straight trucks... The TopKit system was designed to provide a nearly invisible alternative to side skirts, boat tails and other devices that extend far from a trailer’s outside edges and create durability concerns as well as blocking access to the trailer for routine inspections and maintenance... The design of TopKit also eliminates the increased heating of tires and brakes that can result from the use of underside-based systems, according to the company, while SmartTruck’s top-based aerodynamic solution reduces the opportunity for damage from dock or intermodal operations...
(Photo: SmartTruck)   --  Greenville, S.C., USA - Virtual Strategy Magazine - April 02, 2015

DANGEROUS TRUCKS * USA: Half of the trucks, had overburdened tires because of heavy loads or low air pressure

* Michigan - Many tractor-trailers on Texas roads exceed tires’ safety ratings

-- Many tractor-trailers on the roads across Texas and the nation are driven faster than the 75 mph their tires are designed to handle, a practice that has been linked to wrecks and blowouts but has largely escaped the attention of highway officials... Nearly all truck tires have been built for a maximum sustained speed of 75 mph since the middle of last decade, when drivers across the vast majority of the U.S.A. were allowed to go no faster than 65 or 70 mph... But 14 states, mainly west of the Mississippi River, now have speed limits of 75, 80, even 85 mph in part of Texas. Some of those states acted without consulting the tire industry... Safety advocates and tire experts say that habitually driving faster than a tire’s rated speed can generate excessive heat that damages the rubber, with potentially catastrophic results... Last month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration closed the investigation into blowouts involving certain Michelin tires after determining that truck operators, not the tires, were at fault. As part of the Michelin investigation, the agency tested trucks and surveyed over a dozen drivers in Pennsylvania, finding that more than half had overburdened tires because of heavy loads or low air pressure. Sixty percent of drivers didn’t know the proper inflation pressure for the trucks they were driving... 
(Photo by LAURA SKELDING/AP - In this Dec. 16, 2011, photo, a tanker truck speeds down Interstate 35 in Austin,TXS)  --  Detroit, MICH, USA - ASSOCIATED PRESS/The Star Telegram, by TOM KRISHERTHE -31 March 2015