The Coalition for Transportation Productivity (CTP), a coalition of more than 180 shippers and allied associations dedicated to increasing the federal vehicle weight limit to 97,000 pounds for vehicles equipped with an additional (sixth) axle, is speaking up about a pending bill in Congress, the Safe and Efficient Transportation Act (SETA), saying they are being unfairly portrayed by groups who oppose this bill.

In Sunday’s June 12 edition of The Register-Herald, an article presented The Coalition Against Bigger Trucks (CABT) opposition to increasing truck weight, which used examples of public safety and infrastructure damage for reasons this bill should not be implemented. It also explained that although this bill would set a federal weight limit, it would be each state’s decision to determine at what weight their trucks could operate.

But John Runyan, executive director of CTP, says the information CABT has provided is misleading and wants to set the record straight.

“We have a proposal to take the standard work horse 80,000-pound, five-axle rig —what we think of as an 18-wheeler — and not making it any bigger, longer or wider, but simply add an additional axle to the rear that will allow it to carry additional weight without increasing any axle weight limits,” Runyan said.

He said not only would this reduce costs for shipping companies, like International Paper, it would also reduce environmental impact, strengthen the economy, improve infrastructure and make roads safer.

Runyan presented a 2008 study by the American Transportation Research Institute that found six-axle trucks carrying 97,000 pounds get 17 percent more ton-miles per gallon than five-axle trucks carrying 80,000 pounds.

Also, he said, “The more it takes for a company, take a shipper like International Paper, at one mill, they had 600 trucks a week moving from that loading dock. If we could implement this proposal, in all the states they were delivering, they could use 450 trucks instead of 600. That is a lot of vehicle miles traveled (VMTs) saved, and that’s some 10,000 gallons of diesel a week saved.”

On CTP’s website, they also claim “under full implementation of SETA, CTP member Kraft Foods would save 6.6 million gallons of fuel and eliminate 73,000 tons of carbon emissions each year.”

Runyan also says U.S. gross vehicle weight limits trail all of the nation’s major trading partners, including Canada, Mexico and most European nations, so raising the limit would help the U.S. compete in the global economy.

“We’ve created an entire industry at our ports and border areas that only reconfigures loads with goods coming into the country to match them up with the weight limits to wherever they’re going. That is an extra cost that American manufacturers have to pay to ship goods to international markets, and that is one of the reasons we are pushing for this bill.”

This may be true, CABT members agree, but their No. 1 reason for opposing this bill is public safety. CTP says that vehicle miles traveled is directly correlated to accidents on the roadways and by implementing this bill, there would be fewer VMTs, therefore, making roadways safer.

“If you run the numbers, what we have created is a 22-wheeler and the advantage tire displacement —the weight per tire — under our configuration is less that today’s 18-wheeler at 80,000 pounds. So we have less impact on any one stretch of road,” he explained. “We do have a slightly greater impact on any one bridge because you are putting 17,000 more pounds on it.”

According to a national bridge inventory, a 2010 study performed by the Federal Highway Association, one of every four bridges in the U.S. is structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. One-third of West Virginia’s bridges fall under the above category.

Runyan says that this proposal is a step in the right direction and that this proposal would help point the way to bridges that need to be upgraded.

 “If there is a particular problem bridge where you can’t carry this load, that bridge gets flagged for future attention and gets put on a priority list, or not, depending on the state’s needs,” he said.

But with every level of government strapped for funds, CABT says the proposal would only further infrastructure damage and increase repair costs.

The largest issue, by far, is public safety.

CABT says large trucks have a fatal crash involvement rate 40 percent higher than the rate for a passenger car, according to a 2008 study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. But CTP members disagree again, saying VMTs directly correlate with accidents and since there would be fewer trucks on the road, the results would be safer roadways, Runyan said.

However, various law enforcement agencies support CABT’s proposal to freeze truck weight limits because of public safety. Recently, the West Virginia Chiefs of Police Association joined their list.

Although Runyan said he believes most law enforcement agencies have been led astray, D.M. Latimer, vice chairman for National Troopers in Washington, D.C., disagrees.

“I know as much about this legislation as any law enforcement agency in the nation, and I tried to play devil’s advocate, and tried to look at it from the other side and figure out how what CTP were reporting made sense,” he said.

“I really struggled at trying to figure this out. Because at the end of the day, when I unpacked everything, I looked at it through my trooper eyes and then through my business eyes. It appeared at the end of the day, this legislation was only going to benefit a very small number of big businesses,” he said. “At the end of the day for trooper groups it became a safety issue. We (the law enforcement agency) do not hate trucks. I think  most of us can recognize the economic value that trucks have on our commerce. The things the CTP are saying, to be quite honest, are disingenuous at best. It just doesn’t make any sense that this would make roads safer.”

Runyan said, in defense, that in states where pilot tests have taken place, the law enforcement agencies who have seen this first hand support CTP efforts.

For more information in support of SEATA, visit www.transportationproductivity.org. For information in support of SHIPA, to freeze truck weights, visit www. cabt.org.

— E-mail: kvanpelt@register-herald.com