many USAnians
suspect that USAnian road haulage companies get rich by hauling
more than the listed weight in their trucks, thereby accelerating the wear and tear on the highways.
In early 2018 I was working in Avenza, Italy, above which are mountains. Mountains with giant bites out of them for they are made marble. Name a famous Roman statue, it was almost certainly was once a lump of mountain within 10km of Avenza. There were marble yards everywhere, more common around the industrial estates than charity shops on a UK high street. Lumps of mountain are precariously perched upon knackered old trucks ^^^up there^^^ and brought down to the sea level yards powered by prayer and
very well maintained brakes (accounting for 99.9999% of the maintenance effort expended upon said trucks in the decades since their birth). One I saw was amazing, it was so bent of frame the offside wheels were skipping & spinning as it accelerated away unloaded. At the yards techniques that would make a QA man weep/explode/aneurysm all at the same time were employed to remove the lumps of mountain from the trucks.
You would think after so many hundreds of years of practice they'd have learned to put the baulks of timber across the flatbed so that the unloading telehandler could get it's forks underneath. No. Longitudinal timbers are the accepted way and another MUPE/telehandler/rusty tractor/building/rope/whatever preventing the telehandler pushing the lump off the far side was the technique. Far from every time that worked. Or, pick it up from the rear and pray. Fervently. Many, many times the building I was in shook as another lump got dropped in the yard next door. They had a pile of bent and broken telehandler forks the size of a transit van.
Anyway... One Sunday a colleague and I took the tourist tour up to the quarries. We were shown the small family operations dating back generations and the big commercial outfits responsible for 100's of feet of reduction in one or two peaks. One point of note in the commentary was the maximum weight of the blocks moved which hasn't changed much since they used oxen, gravity, rope and a plentiful supply of replacement oxen. 28,000 kg? I forget. Glancing around the yard I asked the guide what happened to the oversize blocks? Each block is clearly marked with it's weight and right in front of us was a 7'x7'x9' or so lump even an amateur could see was waiting for export due to being excellent quality and over weight. Do they lop a foot off the end or wait until dark to bring it down? With a smile "I think you understand Italians very well" was the reply.
Happy days. Cycling in those mountains is something I shall never forget, it wasn't hard to identify and hence avoid the certain death roads. Simply beautiful part of the world.
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