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Proposed truck rule bulks up roadwaysBy JEAN HELLER © St. Petersburg Times, published October 28, 2000 Giannoula Papadopoulos had just turned her white Ford Crown Victoria onto Main Street in Dunedin when a tanker truck loaded with orange juice struck her. The truck rolled up and over the Ford, crushing it and trapping Papadopoulos inside. It took rescue crews from Dunedin, Clearwater and Palm Harbor two hours to cut the 65-year-old woman out of her car. She was critically injured in the May 1999 accident. "I couldn't believe she survived," said Cpl. Glenn Luben of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office major accident investigations unit. "The truck weighed 80,000 pounds. Can you imagine what might have happened if it had been 15,000 pounds heavier?" Heavier trucks will be in Florida's future if the state Department of Transportation approves a new rule next year that would put thousands more trucks on the state's highways with heavier loads. The heavier trucks would travel local roads because the federal government doesn't permit the higher weights on the interstate system. Without special permits, a truck-cargo combination today cannot weigh more than 80,000 pounds. Haulers may buy permits that allow them to carry an additional 15,000 pounds, but only if the load is an international maritime shipment in a sealed cargo container. Permits for the larger loads come in two forms, a trip permit good for one container shipment, or annual permits for unlimited container trips. All trips must begin at a port. Last year, FDOT issued 1,200 annual permits and 3,300 trip permits. If FDOT approves the new rule as requested by the trucking industry, the agency would make available up to 2,000 additional annual permits that would allow any commodity to be hauled from any point within the state to any other point within the state in 95,000-pound truck-cargo increments as long as the cargo is in a sealed container. Each permit would be renewable twice. The trucking industry says the change would save it $30-million a year because it could take a larger load per truck instead of more trucks. The Florida Trucking Association has said the proposal wouldn't increase truck traffic significantly -- 2,000 more trucks to a state that already has 100,000 on its roads. The measure is actively opposed by the Florida Sheriff's Association and AAA Auto Club South. "These trucks will be more difficult to steer and to brake," Luben said. "At highway speeds it already takes a football field to stop a truck weighing 80,000 pounds. The heavier trucks need even more room. They are more prone to load shifting and to rollovers. It just isn't a good idea." In addition to safety, AAA opposes the rule because of the increased damage to road surfaces. "The additional 15,000 pounds doubles the roadway damage," said Diane Jones, project manager for Auto Club South. "And the taxpayer picks up most of the cost of repair." Additional road damage would amount to about $4-million a year, about $1-million of which would be offset by the $500 the truckers would have to pay for each of the new permits. Auto Club South disputes the notion that the proposal would reduce truck traffic. Bill Albaugh of FDOT said the truth might be somewhere in the middle. "FDOT hasn't taken a stand on this one way or another. We've been asked to look at it. We drafted a proposed rule and advertised it so everybody who's interested can have input. That input will be analyzed, and the secretary will make a decision sometime early next year." A public workshop on the proposed rule will be held in Tallahassee on Dec. 4.
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From the Times state desk
From the state wire
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