Big Prime Movers – Why Does Australia Have Serious Problems? And How Do We Fix Them?

Australia had experienced significant safety related problems with high powered, long wheelbase prime movers. Yet the same problems have not been documented in USA or Europe. This paper reviews the vehicle engineering problems with very large prime movers that lead to wandering, darting (a very serious road safety problem), degradation of the vehicle components through vibration, degradation of the driver?s health through vibration, and fatigue. It further researches the reasons why the problems seem to be restricted to Australia. Finally it details the changes to design likely to eliminate the problems in prime movers built in the future.