A pair of bills headed to Congress will present opposing viewpoints on the weight of trucks that should be allowed on Maine highways.
U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud has sponsored a bill that would allow Maine and other states to increase the weight of trucks allowed on the interstate system. That measure would allow industries in Maine to be more competitive and save on fuel, Michaud said. It would help reduce pollution and promote safety for Mainers by making sure more heavily loaded trucks aren’t forced to take secondary roads.
Daphne Izer sees it another way. She and the group Parents Against Tired Truckers, which she founded, support a bill that would freeze the size and weight of trucks on Maine roads. That bill, Izer said, would allow states to maintain current weights but would close dangerous loopholes that allow the operation of overweight trucks.
Michaud on Monday introduced the Safe and Efficient Transportation Act. Currently, he said, most of Maine’s interstate highways are subject to the federally mandated truck weight limit of 80,000 pounds.
However, Maine’s state limit is 100,000 pounds, Michaud said, and it would be difficult to lower it due to the demands of Maine’s major industries.
“Thoughtful implementation of a federal truck weight exemption for the remainder of Maine’s interstate, and changes like it in other states, would help our struggling economy,” Michaud said. “It would allow our industries in Maine to be more competitive and save on fuel. It would also help reduce pollution by making sure we are getting the most out of every truck-mile traveled.
“And most importantly,” Michaud said, “it would promote safety for Mainers by making sure more heavily loaded trucks aren’t forced to take secondary roads through town centers in their travels up and down our state.”
According to Michaud, Gov. John Baldacci, the Maine Legislature, the Maine Department of Transportation, the entire Maine congressional delegation and hundreds of Maine small businesses have requested an exemption from federal truck weight limits.
Izer and her group, which support the Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act, disagree.
“Maine needs safer trucks,” Izer said, “not bigger trucks.”
Michaud’s bill proposes raising truck weight limits from 80,000 pounds to 97,000 pounds across the country, with each state given the choice to opt in.
But Izer said bigger trucks carry serious safety risks, require longer stopping distances, accelerate damage and destruction to roads and bridges, consume more diesel gas and pollute the air, water and land.
Izer said she is “dismayed and disappointed that the major support for Rep. Michaud’s bill comes from trucking and shipping special interests. What does that tell us about who benefits from his legislation?”
Studies show the chances of a truck crash resulting in death and serious injuries increase with each extra ton over 80,000 pounds, she said. Heavier trucks are also more likely to roll over in a crash.
Braking distance is especially important, Izer said, because in a fatal crash between a big truck and a car, 97 percent of the people who die are in the smaller passenger vehicle.
In 1993, Izer’s 17-year-old son, Jeffrey and three teenage friends died when a sleepy tractor-trailer driver ran over their car as it was parked in the breakdown lane on the turnpike in Falmouth. The truck driver ultimately pleaded guilty to log book violations. He was sentenced to three months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
But Michaud, a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said his bill also has safety in mind. The current patchwork of differing weight requirements, he said, threatens safety by forcing trucks onto roads not designed for their use.
“This is coming from a considered and studied position,” said Ed Gilman, a spokesman for Michaud. “He’s been working on it for years.”
Izer considers SHIPA the bill to promote highway safety. It would bring to a halt the endless rounds of increased weights sought by trucking interests that attempt to foist bigger and heavier trucks on the states outside their interstate highways, she said.
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