Bills Aim to Block Efforts to Raise Truck Size, Weight
This story appears in the May 13 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — Calling large, heavy trucks a danger to the nation’s highways and motorists who use them, two members of Congress last week proposed a measure that would stop any state’s attempt to increase size-and-weight restrictions on trucks.
The Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act, or SHIPA, would effectively apply the freeze that is on the Interstate Highway System — a federal maximum weight of 80,000 pounds and a maximum trailer length of 53 feet — to the National Highway System.
“We need to stop big industry’s push to increase truck size and weight state-by-state, special interest exemption-by-exemption. Safety must come before profit,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said May 7 at a Truck Safety Coalition press conference on Capitol Hill.
“SHIPA would extend the common-sense truck size-and-weight limitations on our interstates all across the National Highway System,” said McGovern, who proposed the legislation that day in the House of Representatives.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) sponsored identical legislation in the Senate. SHIPA has been introduced in every session of Congress for more than a decade, but the legislation has never passed.
The National Highway System is a more than 220,000-mile network of major highways linking most of the United States. The system includes the 44,000-mile Interstate Highway System, arterial highways, roads that have been deemed as important to defense, major highway connectors and intermodal connectors, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
The Truck Safety Coalition, a lobbyist group, also released a public opinion poll showing 68% of Americans oppose allowing heavier trucks on U.S. highways, and 88% do not want to pay higher taxes to repair potential infrastructure damage from heavier trucks.
“Heavier trucks are deadly, dangerous and destructive,” Joan Claybrook, the group’s chairwoman, said at the press conference. “Families are paying with their lives and with their wallets. Corporate profit and campaign money are driving the agenda, not public safety.”
She said she feels confident SHIPA will pass this time as a result of greater input from truck crash victims and their families working to pass it.
“We have more people involved, and what’s different this year is it’s another year and we still want this bill,” Claybrook told Transport Topics.
American Trucking Associations took issue with the proposal.
“This legislation, which has been introduced multiple times and has never been seriously considered, would severely restrict states’ ability to decide for themselves how best to deal with their congestion and goods-movement issues at a time when they should be granted more flexibility not less,” ATA spokesman Sean McNally said.
“The trucking industry’s first and foremost priority is, and has always been, the safe and efficient movement of goods on our nation’s highways,” he added.
During the press conference, Claybrook and McGovern spoke specifically about the Safe and Efficient Transportation Act, a bill that would allow states to permit 97,000-pound trucks on their interstate highways as long as the heavier trucks had a sixth axle.
“The sixth axle maintains, or even improves, braking capability and reduces weight-per-tire characteristics so shippers can safely utilize more space inside the trailer,” John Runyan, executive director of the Coalition for Transportation, said in a statement.
Claybrook objected: “The state option is no option at all. It is a political trap used routinely by the corporate trucking interests. These megacorporate trucking and shipper companies will storm state legislators, using campaign contributions to get some states to adopt the higher weight limits. Neighboring states will then be pressured to follow suit.”
The Safe and Efficient Transportation Act was originally incorporated into a bill that the House considered and that eventually became MAP-21, last year’s major transportation law. But the House Transportation Committee took it out and replaced it with a provision asking the Federal Highway Administration to study the safety and infrastructure implications of larger, heavier trucks.
The Coalition for Transportation Productivity, which supports the legislation, responded to the Truck Safety Coalition press conference, calling the group a “railroad-backed coalition.”
The Truck Safety Coalition did not respond to a request for comment on its affiliation with the rail industry.
Among SHIPA’s supporters are the Teamsters union, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association and AAA.
“This legislation is vitally important in not only improving the safety for our driving membership and the motoring public but also protecting our highway and bridge infrastructure here in the United States,” said Fred McLuckie, director of legislative affairs for the Teamsters.
Forty-four states allow truck weights above 80,000 pounds in certain circumstances, but only 13 of those states allow the heavier trucks on their interstate highways, according to ATA. Those 13 states are exceptions to the 1991 law freezing truck weights on interstates.
Nine states allow trailers longer than 53 feet, ATA said. States cannot allow trucks to carry more than one trailer, except for the 26 states in which the federal government permits two trailers and the 17 in which three trailers are allowed.
