Post Scripts: Longer, heavier trucks…Bull!

If we didn’t have so many other problems right now, with the president trying to cope with the terrorists, and our military spread quite thin over numerous areas of the globe, plus a recession that refuses to go away – plus an $80 billion deficit in the Federal budget (and this is only July) the trucking industry wants to put bigger, heavier trucks on our highways.

This item didn’t get much space in area newspapers, about three paragraphs as I recall, but there it was in black and white, just below stories about suicide bombers and the India-Pakistani plan to blow up each other with medium sized atomic bombs. I don’t know if you saw it in your favorite daily newspaper, but I read it fully understanding the consequences if such a proposal is approved.

The big, corporate truck companies figure this is a good time to sneak the proposal through congressional channels in Washington since most of the public’s attention these days is focused on the war and the prospects for a far-bigger conflict. The new limits would give their trucks far more elbow room against our sedans and pickups on the highways.

If they get their way the truckers will sport double-trailers stretching one-third the length of a football field, the distance of my best punt’ and these guys have a habit of getting what they want in Washington with truckloads of booze, box seats at sports events – plus a few million spread around. The American Trucking Association, one of Washington’s smartest and best-heeled lobbies, has long chafed under the 80-ton limitation and two trailers which cannot exceed 28 feet in length.

It hopes to get the okay of Congress for 90 tons overall and double 33-foot trailers. In order to appear generous and cooperative, the truckers say they will spread the heavier loads over six axles , instead of five – just to reduce the damage to highway surfaces. Now don’t that ease your nerves?

Truckers have their dander up. They’ve already tried this twice before but only successful in a few Midwest and Mountain States, plus Alaska. To their supreme delight, the truckers sense a new, friendlier political climate in Washington, D.C. We can only hope that isn’t the case, but recent concessions to the steel and logging industries, giant agribusinesses and airlines, the trucking corporations sense their time has come. The U.S. Department of Transportation is saying they see public benefits in longer, heavier trucks. Bull! We know who benefits.

Trucking Association people anticipate benefits to truckers of more than $6 billion a year. We are asked to believe they anticipate no peril to life or limb in triple-unit rigs stretching over 105 feet, swerving down an interstate at 70 mph. That’s like taking a 10-story building, laying it on its side, and racing it down I-35!

At a time when ordinary citizens are being asked to buy lighter, more fuel-efficient cars, they are also being asked to share road space with longer, heavier trucks. Isn’t traffic bad enough now?