STRONG – Landowners are threatening to keep snowmobilers and other outdoorsmen off hundreds of thousands of acres in central and western Maine to protest heftier fines for overweight trucks.

A dozen people in forest-products businesses met Thursday to discuss what they say are excessive fines for truckers who carry too much on their trucks. A law passed last year increases the fines as of Jan. 31 – in some cases by three or four times.

Members of the group said they have commitments from landowners in eight counties to post 700,000 acres of land to prevent snowmobilers, hunters and other outdoorsmen from using the land.

They said truckers are seeking broad support in opposition to the increased fines and that posting the land to all recreational uses by the general public is the only option left.

The law, which the Legislature passed last year, triples the basic fine for trucks that are carrying between 21 percent and 30 percent over the posted weight. The base fine nearly quadruples for trucks that are more than 50 percent overweight.

A truck that was cited recently in New Vineyard for being 63 percent overweight would now receive a fine of $1,130. After January, the fine will be more than $6,000.

Harry Gordon of Strong said log truck drivers don’t know how much they’re carrying when they come out of the woods.

“It isn’t a fine, it’s a death sentence,” Gordon said.

Bruce Van Note, director of policy and analysis for the Maine Department of Transportation, said there are three reasons for the higher fines – safety, protection of road and bridges and fair competition for law-abiding truckers who haul legal weight.

He said this is the first increase in fines for heavy trucks in 27 years, and that they need to be big enough to keep trucks from being overloaded. The fines increase more steeply the more the trucks are overweight; the fine will be the same under the new law for trucks that are less than 10 percent overweight.

“Truckers have control over not getting a truck fine,” Van Note said. “Don’t overload, and if you do overload just a little the fine stays the same. If they excessively overload, the fine is significant.”