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SIZE AND WEIGHT

Monster Trucks - January 16, 2002 (OA)

Don't raise weight limits

The Charleston Gazette Online
Wednesday January 16, 2002

THE coal industry will try to persuade the Legislature to increase the legal weight limit on coal trucks this session, by promising to obey the law if heavier loads are legalized. (Whatever happened to obeying the law because, well, it's the law and if you violate it you get punished?)

Coal lobbyists will point to Kentucky, which made a similar deal back in 1986, allowing coal trucks to haul 126,000 pounds on state roads with a $360 permit. But guess what? That deal didn't work. Even with the higher limit, coal trucks still routinely break the Kentucky law.

A 1999 University of Kentucky study found that 88 percent of loaded coal trucks exceeded the legal limit on the state's major coal highway, U.S. 23. The average weight was 158,000 pounds. Some trucks were hauling in excess of 200,000 pounds.

The answer to the overweight truck problem is not to increase weight limits. That's like saying the answer to the drunken driving problem is to raise the legal blood-alcohol content.

The answer to the monster truck problem lies in enforcement. The Legislature needs to give state enforcers the tools to crack down hard, not just on trucking companies but on coal companies that ship the coal and on receiving companies that unload the overloaded trucks.

The Legislature needs to give enforcers power to examine shipping records both at the source and the destination. Overloading a truck or unloading an overweight truck need to be made criminal acts, with hefty fines that erase the competitive advantage gained from risking the lives of innocent travelers who share the road with monster trucks.

The maximum fine in West Virginia is $1,600. The maximum fine in some other states is nearly 20 times that amount.

The Legislature needs to give Department of Transportation weight crews the authority to weigh trucks even if they've pulled off the pavement. It's ludicrous to hamstring those crews by forcing them to tow such trucks onto scales, especially since no towing company in the southern coalfields will take such business.

Oddly, Gov. Wise didn't mention the overweight truck problem in his State of the State mandate to the Legislature last week. In a subsequent Gazette interview, House Speaker Bob Kiss and Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin were asked if the monsters will be allowed to continue destroying West Virginia roads and killing motorists, or will action finally be taken. They replied that reforms would be attempted this session. Sardonically, Kiss observed that many West Virginia bridges couldn't bear the higher weight limits sought by coal firms.

But the governor strangely said he doesn't back a bill that would enable genuine weight enforcement by allowing state officers to see scale records. That's puzzling - and disappointing.

In the coming 60 days, we hope lawmakers take action that will make roads safer. Raising weight limits won't do that. Increasing enforcement powers will.