Rail industry, OOIDA add their opposition to increasing truck size, weight

Politics makes for strange bedfellows: OOIDA, two rail groups latest to oppose increasing truck size and weight

The Trucker News Services

7/15/2008

The Association of American Railroads (AAR), the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) are among the groups to voice their opposition to legislation to increase truck size and weight limits on the nation’s highways.

As reported on this Web site last week, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters issued a press release also opposing efforts to allow heavier and longer trucks on the road.

The rail industry release stated that data collected by the U.S. Department of Transportation shows that trucks weighing over 80,000 pounds pay only about half of their highway cost responsibility. Longer, heavier trucks — unless accompanied by sharp increases in taxes — would pay an even smaller share and would divert between 100 and 225 million tons of freight annually from rail to highways.

Additionally, stated the two rail groups, moving all that freight by highway would require the consumption of between 500 million and 1.1 billion additional gallons of diesel fuel, producing 1.6 to 3.8 million tons of additional pollutants and 5.6 to 12.3 million tons of additional carbon dioxide each year.

The Teamsters noted in their July 9 press release that increasing truck size would make the highways more dangerous. 

Last week OOIDA added its voice to the call against longer trucks.

Testifying at the hearing on behalf of OOIDA was senior member Bill Farrell, the owner of Bill Farrell LLC based in Missoula, Mont., saying, “Under the guise of enhanced productivity, some carriers and shippers incessantly push for ever-increasing size and weight limits while largely ignoring the dire safety implications.”

“Truckers such as OOIDA members know from firsthand experience that further increases in sizes and weights of commercial motor vehicles can endanger highway users and hasten the deterioration of our nation’s roads and bridges,” Farrell told committee members. “As such, OOIDA has long been an opponent of increases to federal truck size or weight standards.”