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SIZE AND WEIGHT

Urgent Action Needed to Oppose Bigger Trucks!

P.A.T.T. AND CRASH WORKING TOGETHER TO SAVE LIVES!

TRUCK SAFETY COALITON LEGISLATIVE ALERT:

URGENT ACTION NEEDED TO OPPOSE BIGGER TRUCKS

MARCH 18, 2003

UPDATE:
· This week, the office of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation will hold a high level meeting involving political appointees and senior staff on the issue of increasing truck weights above the current 80,000 gross vehicle weight (GVW). A background paper being circulated inside the Department of Transportation (DOT) claims that there are few, if any, safety problems with increasing truck weights. This is absolutely false.

IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED:
This week, please call, email, or fax the Honorable Norman Y. Mineta, Secretary of Transportation, and the Honorable Michael P. Jackson, Deputy Secretary of Transportation, and urge them not to increase truck size and weight in the reauthorization of TEA-21.

Secretary Norman Y. Mineta
Phone: (202) 366-1111
Email: Norman.Mineta@ost.dot.gov
Fax: (202) 366-7202

Deputy Secretary Michael P. Jackson
Phone: (202) 366-2222
Email: Michael.Jackson@ost.dot.gov
Fax: (202) 366-3937

YOUR INVOLVEMENT WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

Talking Points:
· Large trucks are over represented in fatal crashes. In 2001, large trucks accounted for only 3 percent of registered vehicles and 7 percent of vehicle miles traveled, but were involved in more than 12 percent of all passenger vehicle crash deaths.

· More than 5,000 people die and an additional 130,000 people are injured each year from crashes with large trucks.

· Ninety-eight (98) percent of the people killed in two-vehicle crashes involving a passenger vehicle and a large truck are the occupants of the passenger vehicle.

· Increasing the allowable weight on existing combination trucks will raise the risk of crashes. The University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute has found that loading existing trucks in excess of 80,000 pounds GVW will increase rollover crashes.

· The US 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.

· 80,000-pound GVW trucks chronically underpay their fair share of the use of the nation’s highways by 20 percent. Combination trucks weighing more than 100,000 pounds pay 40 percent or less of their fair share of highway costs.