{"id":20028,"date":"2012-02-01T06:56:47","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T11:56:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=20028"},"modified":"2012-02-01T07:04:12","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T12:04:12","slug":"opponents-say-upping-load-limits-unwise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2012\/02\/01\/opponents-say-upping-load-limits-unwise\/","title":{"rendered":"Opponents say upping load limits unwise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. &#8212; The bill designed to fix the nation\u2019s crumbling transportation infrastructure will actually accelerate road and bridge damage and trigger an increase in taxpayer subsidies to the trucking industry, said the Association of American Railroads (AAR), which opposes House language allowing for 20 percent heavier trucks and triple trailers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAmericans don\u2019t want 97,000 pound trucks or huge multi-trailers up to 120 feet long on our nation\u2019s highways,\u201d said AAR President and CEO Ed Hamberger. \u201cNor is it fair that even more of the public\u2019s tax dollars will be used to pay for the road and bridge damage inflicted by massive trucks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"MGN Online graphic\" rel=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Truck-standards-artwork-1-2012.jpg\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Truck-standards-artwork-1-2012.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-20031\" style=\"border: 1px solid black\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/Truck-standards-artwork-1-2012.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"188\" \/><\/a>Hamberger pointed out that, today, heavy trucks only pay a fraction of the costs they inflict on taxpayers. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) estimates that taxpayers currently subsidize nearly $2 billion of large truck damage. The most common truck on the road &#8212; an 80,000 pound five-axle single &#8212; pays just 80 percent of the maintenance costs it inflicts on roads, while a 97,000-pound six-axle single truck would pay only 50 percent of the damage it causes.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, state and local governments are paying even more to repair damage caused by heavy trucks every year &#8212; and this amount would grow exponentially if truck sizes increase. According to the Department of Transportation, the additional cost of repairing bridge damage caused by raising truck weights to 97,000 pounds could be as much as $65 billion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStates, cities and taxpayers are already fiscally strapped and it makes no sense to burden them with paying for wear and tear inflicted by massive trucks,\u201d Hamberger said. \u201cRather than increasing the taxpayer burden, this bill should ensure that all modes of transportation pay their fair share.\u201d Hamberger allowed that the freight railroad industry pays for the maintenance and upkeep of the country\u2019s rail system with private capital.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, academic studies show that raising truck weights to 97,000 pounds from 80,000 could actually result in 8 million additional truckloads on America\u2019s highways. \u201cIt\u2019s not too hard to imagine what would happen to our roads if that is allowed to happen,\u201d Hamberger said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, D.C. &#8212; The bill designed to fix the nation\u2019s crumbling transportation infrastructure will actually accelerate road and bridge damage and trigger an increase in taxpayer subsidies to the trucking industry, said the Association of American Railroads (AAR), which opposes House language allowing for 20 percent heavier trucks and triple trailers. \u201cAmericans don\u2019t want 97,000 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-06 08:06:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20028\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}