The Pankian Metaphor 3069

It is going to depend on the load and the design criteria of the highway. If the truck is fully loaded with stone, and it is a smallish road, probably not. If you are dealing with an American truck on a Canadian highway, it probably is. It will depend on the number of tires under the load, and how the axle weighting is proportioned. There is a big difference between a truck with an axle balancing mechanism and one without, for example.

Another major factor is what the maximum load the road was designed for is. Running a load of 100,000 pounds over a driveway will probably damage it beyond repair, while a car will do no damage. On the other hand, driving either on a runnway (designed for a half million pound load) will result in almost zero wear for both. Double zero is still zero.

However all traffic produces *some* wear, as does time. A road with no traffic at all will gradually break up with winter cycles alone.

BTW, I said "having worked in the industry all my life". I am *not* an engineer. I do program software, and large scales (particularly truck scales, including axle weight scales) have been somewhat of a specialty. I have worked with the legal weight requirements for commercial trucks extensively throughtout the eastern part of the continent.

The bottom line is pounds per square inch of tire-the roadbed support figure. To claim, though, that cars do not wear out roads is a gross over-simplification.

It would be far more realistic to say that any load approaching the maximum the road was designed for is going to cause the most damage.

Donald