Information

Types Of Trucks

Semitrucks and Commercial Vehicles and Truck Styles

Semitrucks and commercial vehicles are designed to carry a multitude of payloads including food products, equipment, bulk freight, liquids and livestock. Trucks and trailers range widely in weight, size and volume. As a result, there is a wide variety of vehicles suited to carry the various payloads.

Truck Styles

A large truck falls into one of two categories. They are either straight trucks which are self contained power and cargo carrying units or combination vehicles which consist of a power unit pulling a separate cargo unit. A straight truck can also pull a trailer in which case it becomes part of a combination vehicle. Straight trucks include typical van bodies or bobtail trucks. They typically have two axles- one steer axle and a drive axle.

Also included in the straight truck category are flat-bed straight trucks, again with two axles. The open side of the flatbed allows the transport of large or irregular shaped objects.

Three-axle heavy tow trucks with three primary axles including a steer axle and tandem axles in the back, dump trucks with auxiliary axles, 18wheelers,buses, and concrete mixer trucks may also fall into the large truck category.

Combination Vehicles

A typical combination unit in a combination vehicle consists of a tractor and trailer also known as a tractor and semi trailer. The tractor is strictly a power unit and by itself does not carry a payload and is designed to use with a semitrailer. Most are designed for long haul operations. They typically have a three axle tractor consisting of a steer axle and a set of tandem drive axles. Many have a sleeper berth behind the cab.

Tractors can be three-axle tractors with a day cab, two-axle tractors with a day cab, or a cab-over -engine tractor.

Trailers

There are many types of trailers including a van semitrailer, a refrigerated semitrailer, a flat-bed semitrailer, a step-deck semitrailer and a double drop-bed semitrailer. There are also livestock semitrailers, tanker semitrailers, dry bulk semitrailers, hopper semitrailers, and frameless dump semitrailers.