DOT to Award Funding for Heavier-Truck Study

The U.S. Department of Transportation said it soon will award grants to state agencies to study the safety of trucks running heavier than allowed by current federal law.

Details of the study remain unclear, but an an-nouncement earlier this month said the joint project of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Federal Highway Administration will call for state agencies to collect weight-focused safety data from roadside inspections.

The purpose of the study is to “determine if there are any associations between higher vehicle weights and motor carrier safety violations, particularly those with out-of-service conditions,” said the April 12 announcement.

An FMCSA spokeswoman said the study will not relate directly to the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program and its severity weighting. She did not comment on whether the study results would be used to address issues related to shipping and trucking industry calls for increases in allowable truck weights.

However, Stephen Keppler, executive director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, said he welcomed the studies because they could contribute to a better understanding of the hot-button issue of increasing truck weights for greater motor carrier productivity.

“We’ve been saying for several years that the FMCSA ought to be paying closer attention to this whole safety nexus between weight and safety performance,” Keppler told Transport Topics. “I’m happy to see that they’re doing something about it.”

FMCSA and FHWA did say the “Specialized Heavy Vehicle Inspection Study Cooperative Agreement” will be conducted by qualified state agencies responsible for truck roadside safety inspections.

Information on the application process will be provided in a Notice of Funding Availability, expected to be released soon at www.grants.gov.

FMCSA said it intends to en-ter into the agreements around June 1.

In February, provisions for heavier, longer trucks contained in a transportation reauthorization bill introduced in the House did not survive the bill’s first committee hearing.

By a 33-22 vote, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee removed language that would have allowed states to let trucks up to 97,000 pounds run on interstate highways.

The committee substituted an amendment that called for a study of the effects of bigger trucks on safety and roads.

Trucks currently are limited to 80,000 pounds on the interstate system, except where exemptions have been granted, most recently in Maine and Vermont.

Keppler said that CVSA already has been collecting overweight vehicle data since January in eight states to see how weight correlates with safety performance.

“Obviously this is a big issue on Capitol Hill,” he said. “We need to step back and do a safety assessment on this issue because a lot of the folks are advocating various positions but without accountability.”

CVSA is taking a wait-and-see approach on the issue of heavier trucks.

“Some people are viewing that approach as trying to stall,” Keppler said. “We just want to make sure that people that are in significant decision-making seats — whether they’re in Congress or the administration — have all the information at their fingertips to make informed decisions.”