Editorial: DOT’s Quest for Confusion

Thinking before acting is an admirable habit, especially with respect to governmental decisions. One can never anticipate every possible unintended consequence, but making an effort to look for them is important.

Americans are pretty good at this. We have founded and support research institutes, public policy schools and think tanks — and they serve a fine purpose.

Yet now comes the Federal Highway Administration, which just spent two years, in response to a congressional mandate, studying truck size-and-weight issues, but the researchers could neither find enough data nor reach any conclusion.

Forget about the priest, the minister and the rabbi walking into a bar, this non-study is the real joke.

“It is appalling that after years of saying the study would not make recommendations, DOT officials would release this report — and recommend no change in current law — just days after the White House came out opposing truck productivity increases,” said American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves, who also called the report “flimsy.”

Among the 50 states there are, oh, so many trucks running in many configurations. It rattles the imagination that FHWA could not find anything useful unless the researchers determined beforehand they would pursue obliviousness with vigor.

Joshua Schank of the Eno Center for Transportation suspects the Department of Transportation was eager to punt because officials don’t want to aggravate either trucking or railroads.

We’ll offer a few points to fill the vacuum. Truck productivity, vital to both U.S. producers and consumers, has been lagging due to the federal government’s abject failure to improve transportation infrastructure.

At the same time, trucks are becoming safer, with developments such as electronic stability control, mentioned here last week, and also forward-collision-avoidance systems (see story, p. 1).

We heartily recommend, therefore, modest incremental improvements for truck productivity along the lines of size and weight.

And don’t ignore the social benefits that extend beyond just motor carriers. More efficient trucks lessen the need for putting more trucks on the highway, and they pump fewer carbon dioxide emissions per ton-mile into the atmosphere — one of the Obama administration’s most cherished desires.

Maybe one day that will be made clear in a DOT study.