Industry Urges Bigger Trucks, But Key Lawmaker Has Doubts

This story appears in the July 14 print edition of Transport Topics.

WASHINGTON — Representatives of trucking and shippers urged Congress to increase truck size and weight limits, but the chairman of the House transportation committee said he opposed longer combination vehicles and had doubts about raising weight limits.

Michael Smid, president of YRC North American Transportation, pressed the committee to consider allowing more of the larger combination vehicles, saying the industry could move more freight using fewer trucks.

“Each time a longer combination vehicle is made, it’s half of the number of trucks on the road,” he said.

Tom Carpenter, director of transportation for International Paper, said using a 97,000-pound truck instead of the current 80,000-pound rig would cut his company’s shipments by 25%.

“Each week, we ship about 600 total loads from our Courtland, Ala., plant that travel 628 miles one way, most of that distance on the interstate,” Carpenter said. “If weight limits were increased to 97,000 pounds, we could increase the weight of the cargo on each truck from 45,000 pounds to al-most 60,000 pounds . . . and use 450 trucks instead of 600.”

Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said that he opposed LCVs, however, and was dubious about increasing federal weight limits. He told advocates they needed to prove that bigger trucks would be safer and more efficient.

“I think that those who are advocating for heavier weights, the burden is on you to prove it’s going to reduce the number of vehicles on the roadway,” Oberstar told trucking and shipping officials during a July 9 hearing here before the highways subcommittee.

“Those who are advocating for longer combination vehicles and for maintaining the current exemptions, the burden is on those advocates to prove it’s not going to deteriorate safety,” Oberstar said.

Earlier in the hearing, Oberstar had said he tried to do a pilot project to study the effect of larger trucks on highways but couldn’t get states to agree to pay for it. He said that if he had his way, LCVs and other heavier trucks would be barred from operating on U.S. roads — even in areas where they are currently legal.

“I’m frankly in favor of removing those grandfather clauses and limiting our interstates and the National Highway System to single vehicles,” he said. Currently 18 states, mostly in the western United States, allow larger truck combinations.

After the hearing, Oberstar told Transport Topics that such a move was probably not possible politically but was his preference.

“I wasn’t for them in the first place, and I’m not for them now,” he said. “I think they’re dangerous.”

Oberstar also told TT he thought there was “no empirical evidence” to support increasing truck weights to 97,000 pounds, not even with the addition of a sixth axle to better distribute the added weight.

Smid, however, told the panel that longer trucks haul more freight and get 5.07 miles per gallon, while standard 80,000-pound trucks get 5.8 mpg.

He also asserted that bigger trucks are safer, comparing the accident rate for regular vehicles — 0.463 per million miles traveled — with an LCV rate of 0.306 per million miles traveled — “an almost 30% better rate.”

However, despite supporting harmonizing the LCV rules in the western United States and limited expansion into other areas, Smid said longer trucks were not the solution for all carriers and routes.

“It’s not a situation where all highways, all roads, all bridges, all drivers and all trucks can take part,” he said. “It’s very specific routes.”

Carpenter said allowing more weight to cut the number of trucks his company uses would translate into 94,000 fewer vehicle miles traveled each week, saving the company $73,000 and reducing the total weight on the highway system by 5.25 million tons.

Reducing vehicle miles traveled, Carpenter said, would mean fewer accidents.

“The number one contributor to safety is total vehicle miles traveled,” he said. “The strongest correlation in all of the studies we have seen is between accidents and vehicle miles traveled.”

However, the move to increase truck sizes still faces significant opposition.

Drivers representing the Teamsters union and the Owner-

Operator Independent Drivers Association told the committee they opposed increasing the limits, saying they believed heavier trucks were harder to handle and less safe.

Advocacy groups Public Citizen and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety also testified that they believed the current freeze on LCVs, which has been in place since 1991, should be maintained and the federal limit on truck size expanded from the interstates to all roads in the National Highway System.

“More lives would be lost in large truck crashes, more highways would be lost in large truck crashes, more highways would be damaged and more bridges would be placed at increased risk for catastrophic failure,” said Gerald Donaldson, senior research director for the Advocates.

Both the Association of American Railroads and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association said in a statement they opposed increasing truck sizes.

The groups said that Department of Transportation studies have shown trucks pay only “half of their highway cost responsibility,” and that heavier trucks would increase diversion of rail freight to trucks.