In The News

'BIG BATTLE' MOUNTS OVER BIGGER BIG RIGS

By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY

Debate is heating up over an issue likely to strike terror in the heart of any driver who has spied an 18-wheeler looming in the rearview mirror as he scrambles into the slow lane: whether even bigger big-rigs should be allowed on the nation's highways.

Federal law limits the weight and length of 18-wheeler trailers on the USA's 47,000-mile interstate highway system. Supporters say bigger commercial trucks allow drivers to deliver more freight in fewer trips, thus cutting pollution and reducing congestion on crowded highways. Opponents say the larger trucks would cause more wear-and-tear on the USA's dilapidated roads and bridges and create a greater safety hazard to other drivers.

Those issues are at the center of a congressional battle over whether federal laws that govern truck weights and lengths should allow heavier, longer trucks, or whether the current limits should stand and be extended to even more roads. Federal law limits the weight of 18-wheelers to 80,000 pounds and the maximum length to 53 feet.

"It's a big battle," says Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and a member of StopBiggerTrucks.org, a campaign urging Congress to reject any weight and size increases for commercial trucks. "These trucking companies don't come close to paying their fair share for the damage they do. The American public is going to pay with their lives and their wallets if this goes through." Increasing the federal maximum weight would be a boon to shippers and to the public, says Clayton Boyce, vice president of public affairs at the American Trucking Associations, which represents trucking companies. "It does take a little more fuel, but when you factor in what it would take to pull that in separate loads, it's more fuel-efficient."

Move to extend limits

A measure supported by highway safety advocates, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and many independent truckers would extend weight and length limits to the entire National Highway System, a network of roads vital to the economy, defense and mobility.

That legislation, by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., would also extend a freeze on multiple-trailer trucks. These trucks, known as longer combination vehicles, are currently permitted in 26 states.

Many major trucking companies and manufacturers support a measure that would allow trucks with a gross weight up to 97,000 pounds, provided heavier trucks added a sixth axle with additional brakes. Under that measure, introduced by Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, and Rep. Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio, the heavier weights would require the approval of a state legislature.

"The time is really right for us to look at bigger trucks in an educated way," says Dan Middleton, a specialist in trucks and vehicle detection at the Texas Transportation Institute.

"Canada and Mexico already allow the larger trucks," Middleton said, "and this could help with harmonization of sizes and weights (at the border)."

Weighty debate

Major shippers have sought for years to increase the maximum weight allowed for trucks on federal highways, which has been set at 80,000 pounds since 1982. Some states allow much heavier loads; Michigan, for instance, allows a maximum weight of 164,000 pounds.

Boyce questions whether the additional weight would create more wear-and-tear on roads and disputes the safety concerns related to larger trucks: "There are no safety concerns at all. They are just as safe as lighter trucks."

Gillan, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and some truckers disagree.

"Eighty thousand is enough for anybody. If it gets much bigger, it's going to create an unsafe environment, and more deaths on the roads," says truck driver Lewie Pugh, 35, of Freeport, Ohio. He has driven for 14 years.

TRUCK WEIGHT LIMIT INCREASE TO 97,000 POUNDS PROPOSED FOR INTERSTATES

By Rick Romell of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Apr. 25, 2009

An effort to put heavier trucks on the nation's interstate highways is rolling along, and Wisconsin interests are helping power the rig. MillerCoors and the Wisconsin Paper Council have joined trucking industry and shipping groups pushing for 97,000-pound single-trailer trucks on the interstates, up more than 20% from the current standard of 80,000 pounds.

The change, advocates say, would boost efficiency, enhance safety, cut fuel use, diminish highway congestion and, because the heavier trucks would have an additional axle, actually reduce pavement wear. "Give states and the trucking industry the necessary tools to save lives, reduce energy consumption and emissions, and address critical economic challenges," Michael Smid, a top executive with trucking giant YRC Worldwide Inc., told a Congressional committee last summer. That's the sort of statement that makes higher-weight opponents - and there are many, from safety groups to the railroads and independent truck drivers - gnash their teeth.

"This is horrible, horrible, horrible public policy to do this," said Jacqueline Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, an alliance of consumer, health, insurance and safety groups funded by the insurance industry. Heavier trucks, opponents say, would mean more rollover crashes, more fatalities, more damage to pavement and a lot more damage to bridges at a time when the country's infrastructure is already fractured.

The debate over truck weight is complex and longstanding. But it has gained urgency with the need this year to approve legislation reauthorizing federal highway aid. Piggybacking weight language on the must-pass highway bill is more politically practical than launching a separate initiative. Proponents of a 97,000-pound maximum say Canada and Europe have set their truck-weight limits in that neighborhood without ill effect.

"As far as I can tell, we are the last industrialized country that does not allow this," said Jake Jacoby, director of a coalition of shippers and motor carriers called Americans for Safe and Efficient Transportation. Since the United Kingdom went to 97,000 pounds in 2001, he said, fatalities and accidents involving big trucks have decreased.

But Gillan said there are "clear safety arguments" against higher weight limits. Her organization says that braking distances would lengthen, and that a study has found trucks are significantly more likely to be involved in fatal crashes when weight increases. "Those other countries are making a mistake," she said. Jacoby's group, on the other hand, argues that heavier trucks would mean fewer vehicle-miles traveled and thus fewer fatalities and injuries.

Many exemptions

The basic limit of 80,000 pounds on interstates is riddled with exemptions within various states. And many accommodate specific interests by allowing at least some types of freight - farm products are one example - to exceed 80,000 pounds on typically less-safe non-interstate routes. In Maine, 100,000-pound trucks haul logs and paper down two-lane highways but are barred from about two-thirds of the interstate system.

That helped prompt Maine Congressman Michael Michaud, a Democrat, to introduce a bill last month allowing states to raise their interstate weight limit to 97,000 pounds. The change would help paper and lumber companies in another state with a concentration of them - Wisconsin, said Jeffrey Landin, president of the Wisconsin Paper Council. "The ability to transport finished goods obviously is a big thing," he said. "And the increased weight limits would . . . cut down some of the transportation costs."

Truckloads of paper often max out on weight before they max out on volume. That's also true of beer. MillerCoors now ships 1,000 truckloads of beer from its Milwaukee brewery each week. With the increased weight limit, spokesman Julian Green said, it would need only 760 loads.

Heavier-truck supporters are quick to point to reduced carbon emissions as a benefit, but the core issues in fact are money, safety and infrastructure. And while Michaud's proposal takes a state-by-state approach, the goal, both sides agree, is to go national with the 97,000-pound limit.

Advocates such as Jacoby acknowledge the extra weight would be harder on bridges. They say a higher heavy-vehicle tax would address that. But Gerald Donaldson, senior research director with Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, said raising the tax from the current $550 to $800, as proposed, is laughable. Heavy trucks already "are dramatically underpaying their fair share" of the highway damage they cause, he said.

And because bridge damage rises exponentially with increasing truck weight, the increased tax wouldn't cover it, Donaldson said. Some reports give the weight increase little chance of passing in the near term, but opponents remain on guard and Jacoby believes he and his colleagues have a good shot.

"I feel very confident that we will get something," he said.

VOLVO BACKS LONGER, HEAVIER TRUCKS

By Bruce Harmon Managing Editor

Volvo Trucks North America said the United States should adopt a policy of allowing longer, heavier trucks on the nation’s highways as a way to increase driver productivity and to conserve fuel.

Scott Kress, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Volvo Trucks North America said Friday that to address the problems of fuel efficiency, freight productivity and congestion, “one strategy that should be well understood and considered is more productive trucks.”

Kress said motor carriers should have the “ability to use longer combination vehicles throughout the Interstate Highway System.” Kress, who spoke at a seminar here on climate change policy, said that LCVs would not harm highway safety.

“Volvo will not compromise its role as the industry leader in highway safety.” Bill Graves, president of American Trucking Associations, who also spoke at the seminar, said that while ATA supports the move for LCVs, “I don’t expect this to embraced … overnight.”

Graves said he hoped that upcoming renewal of federal highway legislation would include a pilot project for heavier trucks on truck-only lanes.