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Bill to extend federal truck limits returns to Senate
By Jill Dunn
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., is no fan of triples.
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A bill that would extend the Interstate Highway System truck weight and length limits to the National Highway System, instead of allowing states that jurisdiction, has been reintroduced in the Senate.
Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, introduced the Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act, or S.95, on Jan. 25.
“Fifteen years ago, I got a provision into the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act to ban triple-trailer trucks and other so-called `longer combination vehicles' from New Jersey and most other states,” Lautenberg said when he introduced the bill.
“At that time and ever since, the trucking industry has fought to defeat and repeal this ban, under the guise of arguments for ‘states' rights’ and ‘unfair redistribution of business to railroad.’”
The current bill would extend a freeze of truck size and weight limits set by states, which now applies only to the 44,000-mile Interstate Highway System, to the entire 156,000-mile National Highway System.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has determined that multi-trailer trucks are 11 percent more likely than single-trailer trucks to be involved in fatal accidents, Lautenberg said.
The bill has been introduced before but has not passed. The American Trucking Associations opposes it, but the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association supports a uniform system of sizes and weights.
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