Alabama Truckers Chafe at Strict Enforcement of Truck Routes Ordinance
Jason Etheridge’s family trucking company had been using Danville Road Southwest for years as its route to haul away debris from dilapidated homes demolished by the city of Decatur, Ala.
But the Decatur Police Department issued Etheridge a citation in February for violating the city’s new truck routes ordinance.
Etheridge said Danville Road was approved for years by the city and state for 80,000-pound trucks.
“I just felt it was unfair,” Etheridge said. “We’ve used Danville Road/Memorial Drive as the main thoroughfare into northwest Decatur, where most of the homes the city tears down are, for more than 30 years.”
The Police Department has issued 120 citations since Dec. 1, when enforcement of the city’s new truck routes ordinance resumed. The strict enforcement has created anger and confusion as local truckers try to figure out what the city considers the “most direct route” to a destination.
The City Council in October 2014 passed a truck route ordinance designed to limit trucks with a gross minimum weight of 26,001 pounds or more to state highways that circle the city.
A truck driver can use city streets off state routes only if those streets are the most direct route between a designated truck route and the destination. A driver must provide a bill of lading to show an officer where he’s coming from and his destination, said Sgt. Scott Strickland, of the Traffic Division.
The Police Department gave truckers a brief warning period in June before beginning enforcement. However, the council temporarily stopped enforcement in August because of the Alabama 20/Wilson Street Northeast highway construction.
Enforcement then resumed in December, and Strickland said his officers issued 59 citations in that first month. They cited 18 truckers in January, 33 in February and 10 through the first nine days of March.
“Our officers have discretion on whether to issue a ticket,” Strickland said. “But it’s been pretty strictly enforced” since enforcement resumed.
Truck driver Clinton Manchester said it’s not fair to begin handing out tickets with no grace period.
“If a trucker is written a ticket, the points go on his record and he could lose his way of life,” Manchester said.
He added that one of his co-workers recently got a ticket after a disagreement with a police officer about a route to his destination. He said the trucker chose a route off Beltline Road near Wilson Morgan Park that he thought was safer than the route the officer said he should have taken.
“He would have been going into an area that was unsafe because there are a lot of children playing who aren’t paying attention,” Manchester said.
Manchester said it seems like the officers “are targeting truck drivers to get money.”
Strickland said his officers won’t force a driver to take a street that isn’t wide enough for a large truck.
“There are some areas where they have some flexibility,” Strickland said.
Etheridge predicted when the ordinance was approved that giving the officers discretion to decide what the most direct route is would create problems.
