The motoring public deserves the same attention to safety as the flying public.

Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta’s office recently held a high level meeting aimed at increasing truck weights above the current 80,000 gross vehicle weight. In so doing the secretary disregards the fact that his own DOT has stated that heavier, longer combination vehicles could have fatal crash involvement rates about 11 percent higher than the already high rates of current tractor-semi-trailer combinations.

Just who is the secretary seeking to serve? One needs not look far for an answer.

In its 2002 annual report the American Trucking Associations stated, “Many decades of experience and volumes of research suggest that more productive vehicles can be operated safely and without a detrimental impact on highways and bridges. In addition, the use of more productive trucks can bring down freight transportation costs and reduce overall truck vehicle miles traveled, which reduces trucks’ accident exposure, cuts down on traffic congestion and lowers vehicle emissions.”

In the same report, the ATA offers recommendations: “Reform outdated federal laws restricting the operation of more productive vehicles. Let states, on a limited and strictly controlled basis, allow the expanded operation of longer and heavier trucks on their highways.”

In 2002, the Transportation Research Board issued a study (conducted by the ATA Foundation) that concluded if trucks were allowed to be bigger, longer and weigh more, there would be fewer trucks on the road because fewer trucks could handle the existing freight.

However, Michael Quinlan, of the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, described what happened when higher truck sizes and weights were approved “down under.”

According to Quinlan: There was no decrease in the number of trucks out on the highway; carriers all had to buy new trailers and bigger tractors to pull them to remain competitive; the truck crash and fatality rate did not go down; and when carriers finally spent a lot of money to provide additional capacity, the shippers stirred up industry-wide competition that resulted in lower freight rates.

I cannot understand why trucking companies continue to support the doings of the ATA when this organization seems to be continually championing the causes of shippers and receivers at the expense of their dues-paying members.

Fortunately, there are vocal opponents to these shenanigans.

At meetings held in Sanford, Fla., on March 24, Kevin Bakewell, senior vice president of the AAA Auto Club South, told members of the House Subcommittee on Highways, Transit and Pipelines: “Some in the trucking industry promote the idea that ‘bigger is better’ when it comes to meeting the demands of moving freight. AAA will vigorously oppose such action.”

Bakewell added, “Larger, longer and heavier trucks create serious safety hazards and accelerate the deterioration of highway pavement and bridges. An 80,000-pound semi-trailer truck places a load equal to 9,600 cars on the roads. Adding 15,000 pounds to that can double the amount of damage to the nations’ highways.”

In comments to the committee, Paul Sasso of Edgewater, Fla., a member of the Owner Operators and Independent Drivers Association, said: “Each year, 5,000 people are killed and 100,000 are injured in crashes with heavy trucks. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s 2000 Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study confirmed that making trucks longer and heavier would only increase those numbers. Longer and heavier vehicles are not an answer to the safety problem these vehicles do not benefit anyone but the shippers and receivers.”

According to the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute, loading existing trucks in excess of 80,000 pounds GVW will increase rollover crashes.

After all is said the facts remain. More than 5,000 people die and an additional 130,000 people are injured each year from crashes with large trucks. Ninety-eight percent of the people killed in two-vehicle crashes involving a passenger vehicle and a large truck are the occupants of the passenger vehicle.

The federal government gives much warranted attention to airline safety. Shouldn’t the same safety-first mentality be exercised in regulating ground transportation?

Mr. Secretary, the American motoring public deserves at least a portion of the safety consciousness you seem to reserve for the airline industry. Tell the confused, fat cats from the ATA that until there are substantial decreases in highway deaths and injuries, truck weights will remain as they are.

Guy Bourrie has been hauling on the highways for 20 years. He lives in Washington, Maine, and can be reached at [email protected].