Unblocking Truck Size-Weight Limits
OLIVER B. PATTON
WASHINGTON EDITOR
For as long as trucks have been hauling freight, people have been arguing about their size and how much they weigh. The argument is passionate because it crosses the two hottest wires in the business: safety and money.
Are bigger trucks more dangerous than smaller ones? Do trucks pay their fair share for the damage they do to the roads? And, of increasing importance as more trucks get squeezed onto an aging highway system, what is the proper balance between productivity, safety and money?
These questions have been in gridlock for years, stalled by the passionate advocacy of competing interest groups. Some trucking companies and shippers, for example, have been lobbying Congress to raise the federal truck weight limit. On the other side, safety advocates and others — including the railroads — have effectively blocked that move by arguing that bigger trucks are less safe.
Now there is a proposal that could get the debate off of dead center.
The Transportation Research Board, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, recommended that size and weight issues be managed by a new, independent organization that has the authority to test and evaluate heavier vehicles.
Further, TRB said, states should be allowed to sidestep current federal size and weight restrictions. In effect, they should be able to raise the weight limit from 80,000 pounds to 90,000 pounds for six-axle tractor-semis, and allow double trailers on more roads than now allow them.
This recommendation emerges from the study's key finding that the current regulatory system is haphazard and inflexible.
"Present federal standards are for the most part the outcome of a series of historical accidents," the report said. They hamper international commerce, and are being eroded by special exemptions. Also, they are pushing freight onto secondary roads, which are less safe than Interstate highways.
But the "greatest deficiency" is that the system discourages innovation aimed at improving efficiency.
The system needs fundamental changes to coordinate regulations, highway design and user fees — including, perhaps, cost-based user fees, the report said. It recommends that Congress permit pilot programs to measure the costs and benefits of new sizes, weights and configurations.
This message triggered a variety of responses in the highway user community.
Some trucking interests applauded. Tim Lynch, president and CEO of Motor Freight Carriers Assn., said the report is "an excellent blueprint" for innovative solutions to the size and weight problem.
Lynch's group represents large unionized less-than-truckload companies, including ABF Freight System, Consolidated Freightways, Yellow Transportation and Roadway Express.
In testimony before Congress on behalf of American Trucking Assns., Mike Card, president of Combined Transport, said the report is a "reasonable approach" to unclogging congested highways.
Gary Petty, president of the National Private Truck Council, said the report strengthens the industry's contention that higher size and weight limits can improve productivity — safely.
Not all segments of the industry are interested in new rules, though. For example, Cliff Harvison, president of the National Tank Truck Carriers, said tanker companies are opposed to higher weight limits because they don't want to have to buy new equipment.
Dean Cotten, president of the Mississippi Trucking Assn., has long had a similar message. New size and weight limits might improve productivity, but they also make old equipment obsolete — an expense that many trucking companies cannot afford.
The safety advocacy community is not likely to change its longtime opposition to increases in size and weight limits. Daphne Izer, founder of Parents Against Tired Truckers, was adamant: "We do not want heavier trucks. We wouldn't go along with it whatsoever. Adding more weight will not make the highways safer."
The TRB study, which has been in the works since 1998, will not lead to immediate action. But it comes just as Congress and the highway community are gearing up for major highway legislation due next year, and it could become an important factor in the inevitable debate about how to reduce traffic congestion.
Some transportation planners will argue that improving freight transport efficiency is a key to controlling congestion.
The problem, says Federal Highway Administrator Mary E. Peters, is that the transportation system has not kept pace with demand.
Between 1980 and 2000, highway travel rose 80% and the number of drivers rose 30% — while the number of highway miles increased just 2%, Peters recently told Congress.
Moreover, almost 85% of freight travels on highways, and truck travel is expected to grow 3% a year for the next 20 years. And passenger travel on highways is expected to grow more than 40% over the next 20 years.
The costs of this shortcoming are huge and growing. A recent study by the Texas Transportation Institute estimated that the cost of congestion in just 68 urban areas grew from $21 billion in 1982 to $78 billion in 1999 — including 4.5 billion hours of wasted time and 6.8 billion gallons of wasted fuel.
Peters said that unless something is done about congestion, the country faces higher costs "in foregone productivity" and wasted fuel and a reduced quality of life.
What's needed, said Peters is "strategic expansion" of capacity. She did not mention truck sizes and weights specifically — her focus was on eliminating bottlenecks and improving highway operations with technology.
But the trucking industry has put sizes and weights on the table. In recent testimony before Congress, Michael S. Card, president of Oregon-based Combined Transport called for increased productivity.
Size and weight relief is the most "promising approach" to congestion, said Card, who was speaking on behalf of American Trucking Assns.
He said that U.S. limits put it at a disadvantage with trading partners Canada and Mexico, and that change is overdue. "There has been no legislative relief to these laws in 20 years despite considerable improvements in truck safety and better driver training," he said.
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