1/28: Truck stopper

[SeanAhern]

<rant>
You people are being pretty hard about all of this. I didn't realize that the culture of the Cellar was so damn critical. It appears that people have strong opinions about everything, no matter if they know the details or not.
</rant>

For those of you who are claiming that this device would be easy to bypass by running some lines around it, I have two things to say.

First, read the line from the <a href="http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/truckstoppingdevice.html">second article</a>:
<blockquote>
It is connected to the air lines of a truck or trailer in such a way that any attempt to clamp or block the air line to the TSD will cause the spring brakes to lock the wheels at all times.
</blockquote>
This says that if you tried to bypass the device by routing lines around it, and blocking the lines to the device, would cause the breaks to always engage. I can't tell you quite how they did that, since there are no details provided at any of the sites I was able to locate, but it tells me that the device is more than a blade attached to a paddle. And this leads directly to my second point.

Second, don't you think that the LLNL scientists have already thought of this? Why do you think that armchair engineers here on the Cellar who have just heard of this can come up with circumvention ideas that would blow it out of the water? I mean, I have no problem with people suggesting reasonable criticisms (and the issue of accidental deployment in an accident is a very worrisome one), but the gall to think that the engineers and physicists who did this are so clueless to not have thought of simple bypass mechanisms....just boggles my mind.

Finally, in response to the "nationwide epidemic of non-stopping trucks" question... Why does it have to be an epidemic? Several months ago, California governor Gray Davis said that there was a specific threat against California bridges. The worry was that one of them might be brought down during a rush hour, killing thousands of people. Also, according to http://www.llnl.gov/llnl/06news/News...ct_sheet.html:
<blockquote>
After a tractor-trailer crashed into the California state capitol in January 2001, Gov. Gray Davis asked the CHP to develop a plan to stop a stolen or hijacked fuel truck, which could potentially be used in a terrorist bombing.
</blockquote>
I refer you to http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/c...-1165450c.html and http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/11/02/inv.bridge.threat/ for more information about the threat.