Wisconsin Rep. Ribble makes case for heavier trucks with The Safe Trucking Act

For more than a long time, there has been heavy debate and discussion over truck size and weight-related issues. One argument that has been consistently made over time in an effort to allow heavier and longer trucks on the road, with the objective of increasing highway productivity, has been to reform Interstate vehicle weight limits for six-axle trucks.

This topic again came to light last week, with Rep. Reid Ribble (R-Wisc.) introducing the Safe, Flexible, and Efficient (SAFE) Trucking Act.

This bill, which Ribble’s office said is based on U.S. Department of Transportation safety and road wear data, would allow individual states to decide whether or not they want to allow commercial trucks to carry a maximum of 91,000 pounds, up from the current maximum of 80,000 pounds. And in order to ensure that heavier trucks maintain the same or better stopping distance and pavement wear, they would be required to have a sixth axle as opposed to five, which is currently in place. Ribble’s office added that the U.S. DOT has stated that a six axle configuration would be compliant with the existing federal bridge formula.

“The reality is that our roads are already overcrowded with families heading to school and work, and trucks carrying the things we buy across the country.  The U.S. population has almost doubled since our Interstate highway system was built, and demand for freight shipping is only going up,” Ribble said in a statement. “The SAFE Trucking Act will help us safely move more of the things Americans want with fewer trucks taking up space on the road, and it is based on data to ensure that truck stopping times and pavement wear are as good or better than our current trucks.” 

The SAFE Trucking Act comes on the heels of the DOT’s “Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Limits Study,” which was issued earlier this year. The DOT study was a requirement of the current federal surface transportation bill known as Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21).

The study’s objective, according to DOT, was to “conduct a comparative analysis of the impacts from trucking operating at or within current Federal size and weight regulations to trucks operating above those limits, with attention focused on six-axle tractor trailers and other alternative configurations,” and other factors, including: highway safety and truck crash rates, vehicle performance (stability and control), and inspection and violation patterns; pavement service life; highway bridge performance; and truck size and weight enforcement programs.

A major takeaway from the study that directly ties into the legislation is that six-axle trucks can safely weight up to 91,000 pounds, according to The Coalition for Transportation Productivity (CTP) a concern made up of roughly 200 United States-based manufacturers, shippers, carriers, and industry associations, and yield significant truckload reductions, pavement wear savings, and environmental efficiency benefits. Another key component is that DOT said the legislation is federal bridge compliant in that it meets weight distribution requirements for vehicles traveling on bridges on the Interstate Highway System, with usage of the Safe Trucking Act configuration not leading to increases in one-time rehabilitation costs for interstate bridges. 

“Truck travel has grown 22 times faster than road capacity since the federal weight limit was last changed in 1982,” said John Runyan, executive director of CTP. “Recognizing that more than 70 percent of freight must be shipped by truck, we need to confront the highway capacity crunch now if our country is to remain competitive. The Safe Trucking Act safely improves the productivity of truck shipments so we can decrease the truckloads necessary to meet demand and make our entire transportation network more efficient.”

Various efforts to boost truck weights to increase productivity have been intact going back to the mid-1990s, and the original objective for truck weights was 98,000 pounds, down from the current goal of 91,000 pounds, said Mike Regan, chief relationship officer for TranzAct Technologies.

“91,000 is still a 13-14 percent increase over what is currently out there, and this is a very reasonable and logical piece of legislation,” he said. “It will create billions of dollars in savings for shippers, and is a step in the right direction, even though the weight limit would remain below current limits in Canada and Mexico.”

Regan added that this would be one of the few productivity-enhancing pieces of legislation along with the current suspension of the motor carrier hours-of-service restart provision, which is set to expire at the end of the year. And he noted that by having an extra axle, trucks would have improved braking capacity and be even safer on highways, coupled with being bridge-compliant, while increasing productivity.

“The reason shippers and third parties need to get behind this is because if other modes, like railroads, speak out against it, it will scare away other congressional representatives from tackling other productivity pieces of legislation that are necessary,” said Regan. “This is at a time when there are things out there like HOS, ELDs, speed limiters are already out there and crimping truck productivity. We desperately need the Safe Trucking Act.”

Truck size and weight has long been viewed as a hot button issue in freight transportation and supply chain circles, as well as political ones, too. The case against increasing truck size and weight (TSW) has been built on the premise to keep bigger and heavier trucks off the road and apply existing federal truck size and weight limits to the entire National Highway System, rather than interstate highways, which is the case today. And legislation in recent years that calls for not increasing TSW has included things like longer stopping distances, increased risks of rollover and trailers merging into adjacent lanes, with a 100,000 pound truck with unadjusted brakes moving 25 percent further after a driver applies brakes than an 80,000 pound truck and larger trucks representing a higher share of deaths based on miles traveled compared to standard vehicle traffic, as well as threats to the country’s roads, bridges, and other infrastructure.