* DC - Study couldn’t conclude whether heavier trucks impact highway safety
-- A U.S. Department of Transportation study couldn’t conclude whether heavier trucks impact highway safety, but it did find they would not significantly impact intermodal conversions... Proponents for raising the weight and size restrictions on trucks have heralded the finding, despite the DOT’s claims that the evidence behind their own report proved insufficient... According to Peter M. Rogoff, undersecretary of transportation, there wasn't enough data available from crash reporting statistics to determine a vehicle's weight at the time of collision. Moreover, the DOT could not determine from the available data whether trucks, prior to a crash, were fully loaded, running overweight, at legal capacity for their axle configurations or had unevenly distributed weight... In a letter to Congress, the Coalition for Transportation Productivity, a group of 200 shippers and allied associations, urged lawmakers to reconsider the study’s findings... The group points out that, according to the DOT’s own numbers in their report, six-axle vehicles weighing 97,000 pounds and 91,000 pounds would divert $562 million and $196 million, respectively, from rail — an industry worth $70 billion... It’s a fraction of the total industry that would be overwhelmingly offset by overall freight growth over the next 25 years. Freight is projected to grow at nearly 2 percent each year, 45 percent by 2040... A longtime opponent of increasing trailer sizes, the American Association of Railroads, has declined to comment on the study’s findings since they were published in June...
(Photo/Diagram: From the Federal Highway Administration shows the different in a five-axle versus six-axle tractor trailer. The Coalition for Transportation Productivity wants member of Congress to review data from a recent size and weight limits study and then take action to reform weight limits for six-axle trucks)
Washington, DC, USA - JOC - Jul 06, 2015
Labels: intermodal services, safety studies, safety trucks
![[Valid Atom 1.0]](valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home