Increasing truck weights not worth the impact

Arguments pro and con concerning raising truck weight limits on the nonturnpike miles of Maine’s interstate are getting hot. As a Maine resident and trucker with 20-plus years over-the-road experience, I too am beginning to heat up.

The argument purports to center on safety, with proponents arguing that overweight trucks (those in excess of the federal limit of 80,000 pounds) must be allowed to use the Maine interstate north of Augusta. Such a change would remove these trucks from their current secondary routes (where Maine law allows them) and would thus make these roads safer for the motoring public.

Not so fast.

Maine officials have stated that they will continue to allow 100,000 GVW trucks on local streets even if these trucks were permitted on the remainder of Maine’s interstate highways. Yes, many trucks would remove to the four-lane, but many would continue to use the two-lane routes for a variety of reasons and they would be perfectly within the law. Very few if any 100,000-pound loads, or 80,000 for that matter, originate or terminate on the interstate.

At some point they must make the trek down a ramp and onto a secondary road. If safety is truly the goal here, and not just a smoke screen to confuse the public, then raising the weight limit on the interstate from 80,000 to 100,000 is not the real issue; lowering the 100,000 limit to 80,000 on secondary roads and the Maine turnpike is.

A recent Lewiston Sun Journal editorial stated, “MDOT estimates that waiving federal weight limits would result in three fewer truck crashes in Maine every year. In addition to the safety benefits, waiving weight limits would save MDOT between $1 million and $1.65 million every year on pavement costs, and approximately $300,000 per year on bridge rehabilitation costs. The overall economic benefit to Maine and its citizens would be between $1.6 million and $2.3 million annually.”

Fewer truck crashes? An economic benefit to Maine citizens?

Oh really?

A 1988 study conducted by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that the chances of a big truck crash resulting in death and serious injuries increase with each extra ton of weight over 80,000 pounds. A truck weighing even a legal 80,000 pounds is more then twice as likely to be involved in a fatal crash as

a truck weighing about 50,000 pounds.

The U.S. Department of Transportation, in reports dated 1997 and 2000, found that overweight trucks, particularly 100,000 pounds GVW trucks, dramatically underpay their fair share of taxes and user fees for the repair of U.S. roads and bridges. By damaging roads, large trucks further degrade highway safety.

As far back as 1962, the Highway Research Board, NAS, reported that pavement damage is caused almost entirely by heavy trucks, not by passenger cars. One legal 80,000 pounds GVW tractor-trailer truck does as much damage to road pavement as 9,600 cars.

Wilbur Smith Associates, a noted infrastructure consulting firm, was contracted by the state of Maine to conduct a “Study of Impacts Caused by Exempting the Maine Turnpike and New Hampshire Turnpike from Federal Weight Limits”. In their final report issued in April, 2005, this team concluded: “Rescinding the federal truck weight exemption on the Maine and New Hampshire Turnpikes would cost the states of Maine and New Hampshire an additional $3 million to $4.1 million each year.”

The Maine DOT and the trucking industry did not like that report.

Who will pick up this tab? You and I, the Maine taxpayers, will. Who will suffer beneath the wheels of these continually longer, continually heavier trucks? You and I and our children will.

Our beautiful state is not wealthy, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. We enjoy a way of life not known by many. We care about each other’s safety and welfare. It is for these reasons that I ask all my fellow Mainers to look the trucking industry and their beholding politicians in the eye as they gamble with our safety, and call them on their arrogance and assumption that they can bluff us into believing anything.

Enough is enough: 80,000 GVW on all Maine interstates; 80,000 GVW

or less on all Maine secondary roads.

Guy Bourrie is a truck driver and an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ. He lives in Washington and can be contacted by e-mail

at redhaven@fairpoint.net.