STATEMENT OF GARTH DULL FOR THE SENATE EPW
COMMITTEE
September 30, 2002
Introduction
Thank
you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Garth Dull and I am here today to represent
Nevada for Safe Roads, a highway safety coalition focused on keeping trucks
from getting longer and heavier. Among the members of our coalition are the
Nevada Conference of Police and Sheriffs, the Alliance for Retired Americans,
and the AFL-CIO. Attached is a full membership list.
I
have both hands-on and policy experience with the issue of truck size and
weight from my more than 30 years as a practicing highway engineer and senior
policy official with the Nevada Department of Transportation. I served as
Director of NDOT from 1986 until 1995, during which time I was responsible for
the agency’s budget and oversaw the design, construction, and maintenance of
over 5000 miles of roads and bridges. Truck size and weight directly impacts
each. The heaviest trucks would tear up the pavements and reduce bridge life
yet fail to pay their fair share of highway costs.
I
know that there are a number of proposals to allow trucks to get longer and
heavier. Let me say right now: That would be a bad idea. Trucks are big enough.
If you allow them to get any bigger, they will wreak havoc on our highway
infrastructure and cause more fatal crashes. There is no question about that.
Bigger Trucks
Would Tear Up Our Roads and Bridges
In
my tenure at NDOT, like all DOTs, we designed roads and bridges to accommodate
projected heavy truck traffic. Most of Nevada’s bridges — 70-80%, in fact —
were built before 1975, meaning they were not built to accommodate the weight
or number of trucks on the road today. NDOT completed a study in 1994 showing
that some of the heavy trucks using our roads today overstress our older simple
span bridges by as much as 30% beyond their design parameters.1
While no one can quantify exactly what truck weight does to bridge life, we
know that it does shorten it. Bridges are designed with a safety margin to
ensure against bridge failure. Bigger trucks erode that margin, increasing the
number of bridges that must be replaced, strengthened, or posted.
About
15% of Nevada’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete,
meaning they are in need of serious repair.2 There is an even worse
backlog nationwide: Nearly 30% of bridges nationwide are structurally deficient
or functionally obsolete.3 The US Department of Transportation found
in its 2000 Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study that allowing bigger
trucks nationwide would only increase the number of bridges that must be
upgraded. Longer combination vehicles
(LCVs) — long double and triple
trailer trucks — would alone mean
$319 billion in additional bridge costs.4
Heavier
trucks also have the potential to decrease pavement life, particularly when
weight is added without adding additional axles. The American Association of
Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) determined in its 1950’s Road Test
that pavement damage increases exponentially with the weight of a truck. For example,
one 80,000-pound five-axle truck does the same road damage as 9,600 cars. A
seven-axle triple does as much damage as more than 27,000 cars. In a number of
states, five-axle trucks operate well above 80,000 pounds. A number of states
allow five-axle trucks to operate above 80,000 pounds on the Interstate
highways under claims of grandfather rights.
The
number of axles a triple trailer truck has is directly related to the amount of
pavement damage it causes. Some triple trailer trucks will operate with nine
axles, which is easier on pavements, but in Nevada, triples can run at 119,000
pounds with only seven axles. Seven axles give the operators the greatest
payload per axle.
The Heaviest Trucks Fail To Pay Their Fair Share
To
add insult to injury, the heaviest trucks fail to pay their fair share of road
costs. The 2000 Federal Highway Cost Allocation Study found that heavy trucks on the road today underpay their
share of highway costs by nearly$1.9 billion.5 Triple
trailer trucks pay 70% of their costs through fuel taxes, long doubles pay 60%,
and 80,000-pound singles pay 80%. A single operating at 90,000 pounds, as some
proposals suggest, would pay only 50-60% of its costs.6
NDOT
found that Nevada’s motorists subsidized heavy trucks for 15 of the 19 years
between 1984 and 1998, when the agency completed its last highway cost
allocation study. When I was Director of NDOT, I asked our state legislature to
enact a cost recovery system. Between 1985 and 1989, the legislature enacted a
tax structure that required trucks to pay their fair share of highway costs.
Unfortunately, the legislature repealed this system in 1989.7 Since
then, underpayments have gotten consistently worse. In fact, heavy trucks
underpaid by $335 million in the 1998-1999 biennium.8
To
simply maintain Nevada’s roads and bridges at the current level of service will
take an additional $1.8 billion over the next 10 years.9 Simply
maintaining our nation’s roads and bridges will take $1.13 trillion over the
next 20 years.1° Bigger trucks would only mean higher costs.
Bigger Trucks Would Be More Dangerous
As
you know, the Federal government has responsibility for setting maximum truck
weight limits on the Interstate Highway System, and for regulating the maximum
length and weight of LCVs pursuant to the 1991 LCV Freeze. Our highways are
dangerous enough as it is. Nearly 3,500 large trucks were involved in crashes
in Nevada in the year 2000.11 Increasing the weight of the typical
tractor-trailer and expanding the routes on which LCVs are allowed to operate
would put everyday motorists in even more danger.
In
August of 2000, the US Department of Transportation completed its Comprehensive
Truck Size and Weight Study (US DOT Study). In this study, the US DOT found that LCVs are likely to have
fatal accident involvement rates at least 11% higher than today’s single
tractor-trailers.12
There
is good reason to believe that the fatal accident rate for LCVs could be much
higher. Trucks with multiple trailers have extra “articulation points,” the
points where the tractor and trailers hook up. These articulation points can
add instability. One measure of stability is rearward amplification: After the
tractor makes an evasive maneuver, a lateral force moves down the truck so that
the rear trailer snaps back, much like creating a “crack-the-whip” effect. The
US DOT Study found that on this measure of stability triples show more than
200% poorer performance than single tractor-trailers.13
Another
problem with articulation points is trailer sway. In 1984, the California
Department of Transportation (CalTrans) conducted its Longer Combination
Vehicles Operational Test (CalTrans Operational Test), and found that the
third trailer on a triple trailer truck swayed constantly from side-to-side
from four-to-six inches to as much as three-to-four feet, even on a straight
road on a windless day.14
Because
they are so big and so slow, LCVs have difficulty maintaining speed on
upgrades, creating serious safety risks. During the CalTrans Operational Test,
triples and long doubles on 3% to 4% grades achieved speeds that were 15mph to
22mph slower than the mean speed for single trailer trucks.15 Slow trucks
and fast cars are a dangerous combination. According to a 1981 University of
Texas study, a speed differential of 15 mph increases accident risk nine times.16
Heavier
single trailer trucks would also be more dangerous. Heavier single
tractor-trailers will tend to have a higher center of gravity. Raising the
center of gravity increases the risk of dangerous rollovers.17 In
Nevada, 115 large trucks were involved in rollover crashes in the year 2000.18
I recently passed the scene of a rollover crash in the “Spaghetti Bowl,” where
1-80 and I-580 meet in Reno. A truck took a curve a little too fast and rolled
over, backing up traffic for miles.
Increasing
truck weight is also likely to lead to brake maintenance problems. Roadside
inspections continually show that brake adjustment levels are a serious issue.
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance found during its Roadcheck 2000 that
almost 30% of the vehicles inspected had brakes far enough out of adjustment to
be taken out of service.19 Heavier singles often have an extra axle
at the rear of the truck to prevent additional pavement damage, and on that
axle are two additional brakes. The US DOT expressed specific concern about the
ability to maintain those extra brakes.2° When brakes are out of
adjustment, trucks can take substantially longer to stop. In one study, an
80,000-pound truck took 300 feet — the length of a football field — to come to
a complete stop from 60mph on a dry road. When that truck’s brakes were put out
of adjustment to the level at which a law enforcement officer would take the
truck out of service, the truck took 450 feet to come to a complete stop.21
Heavier
weights also cause more severe accidents. According to the University of
Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), “The general point is that
the energy to be dissipated in a collision, and hence the damage done,
increases with weight, and that the probability of injury increases with
increasing disparity of weights in two-vehicle collisions.”22 This
is simple physics:
Force
equals mass times velocity. When you increase the mass — in this case, the
weight of the truck — you increase the force, or the severity of the crash.
Finally,
longer single trailer trucks also pose a safety hazard. Longer trucks take
longer to pass and to be passed by other vehicles on a two-lane road.23 Longer
trailers also “swing out” into adjacent traffic lanes after the truck’s tractor
has completed its turn. This off-tracking can take up to more than half the
width of the oncoming traffic lane. Motorists can be caught unaware by the
unexpected swingout and be hit by the extra-long trailer.24
The Transportation Research Board’s Recent Report is Faulty
In
Special Report 267, issued this past May, the Transportation Research Board
(TRB) recommended creating a new federal bureaucracy to oversee truck size and
weight regulation, in particular permit programs and pilot projects that would
put bigger trucks on our roads now and test their impacts later. This report is
based neither on sound analysis nor on sound public policy. The TRB conducted
no new research and presented no significant new findings on the safety and
infrastructure impacts of longer and heavier trucks. In fact, they ignored or
attempted to discount the many studies that show that bigger trucks would be
more dangerous and would have a negative impact on roads and bridges.
Take
the issue of safety. The TRB declares that there is a “substantial probability”
that the safety effects of bigger trucks — or, in plain English, the dangers of
increasing truck size and weight — would be large. But the TRB says that it
“hopes” that the changes would contribute to safety.25
The
TRB cites the US DOT’s Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study as well as a
1991 Association of American Railroads (AAR) report on the safety of
multi-trailer trucks. The US DOT found that multi-trailer trucks had an overall
fatal crash involvement rate 11% higher than single trailer trucks after
correcting for travel distribution differences by highway type. The AAR study
found that multi-trailer trucks had an even higher fatal accident rate — 66%
higher than single trailer trucks.
The
TRB says that the US DOT’s findings “contradict” the AAR’s findings, but the
two studies support each other: they both
found higher crash involvement rates for multi-trailer trucks. Because the
studies were nine years apart and used different analysis periods, it is
reasonable to expect some variation in crash involvement ratios. Also, travel
data for multi-trailer trucks suffers from fairly high uncertainty rates that
result in large variations year-to-year in apparent fatality involvement rates.
Either fatal crash rate — 11% or 66% — or something in-between — is completely
unacceptable.
As
to bridges, the US DOT Study also concluded that there would be enormous
additional bridge costs from the nationwide operation of LCVs and heavier
singles. The US DOT based its analysis on a presumption that the federal and
state governments would spend the resources necessary to prevent bridges from
collapsing or failing. As I said earlier, it found that with nationwide
operations of LCVs, the total costs of reconstructing bridges would be $53
billion, with an additional $266 billion in costs borne by highway users in
extra fuel and lost productivity.
The
TRB criticizes the US DOT’s methodology for overestimating
bridge costs because the DOT assumed that all affected bridges would need
to be replaced. At the same time, the TRB said that the DOT underestimated bridge fatigue and the
need to make future bridges stronger to accommodate the heavier trucks. Yet
they say that the correct analysis has yet to be conducted, meaning they do not
know what the bridge costs will be.26
As
I said earlier, nearly 30% of our nation’s bridges are structurally deficient
or functionally obsolete. There is an obvious backlog on maintenance and a
shortage of funding. Yet the TRB is proposing testing these trucks on our
highways.
We
have had LCVs in Nevada for 30 years. Nobody has said that we have not learned
enough about them and certainly no one wants more of them.
Congress Should Retain Jurisdiction Over Truck Size and Weight on the
Federal System
Proponents
of bigger trucks have asked for a “state option” plan whereby the states would
be able to set their own truck size and weight limits on the most important
part of the Federal system: the Interstate highways. But any law regarding the
national transportation system should have national oversight.
In
a previous authorization debate, some suggested that Congress devolve power to
the states to create their own highway design standards. Some joked that we
could have green signs in Nevada and yellow signs in Wyoming, but more
importantly Congress realized that there must be basic uniformity on the
Federal Aid system. That is why the Federal government sets design, maintenance
and construction criteria for the Federal Aid Highway System. Truck size and
weight should be no exception.
If
the states were allowed to set their own limits, those with higher limits would
place tremendous pressure on states with lower limits to allow bigger trucks to
remain economically competitive. A number of Governors and state DOT directors
have already rejected the state option approach for this reason. When Federal
Highway Administrator Mary Peters was Arizona’s DOT Director, she wrote a
letter to her Washington representatives opposing bigger trucks. In her words,
while proponents of bigger trucks “argue that expanding the truck weight limit
would be at a state’s discretion, Arizona could not realistically exclude
larger trucks from commerce here if all of the states surrounding Arizona opt
for the higher limits. Regulation of interstate commerce is clearly one of the
areas reserved by the Constitution to the Congress.”27
What’s
more, “state option” is the reason there are 50 different sets of truck size
and weight limits on the Interstate System. Before Congress set the current
size and weight limits on single trailer trucks and twin 28-foot “short”
doubles in 1982, the states had jurisdiction and local pressures dictated the
various limits. The trucking industry played the states off one another to get
higher limits. When three states held out, the trucking industry claimed they
were hurting productivity and asked Congress to force those states to raise
their limits.28
For
these same reasons, the western states should not be “carved out” of the
Federal picture as some proponents of bigger trucks suggest. The West does have
wide-open spaces and a greater distance between communities, but we also have
many mountainous areas that make heavy truck operations treacherous. Truck
operators do not always upgrade their engines to accommodate extra weight, and
for that reason triple trailer trucks are often the slowest trucks on the road.
Driving up steep grades, that power-to-weight ratio becomes even worse. The
CalTrans Operational Test proved this point. CalTrans drove a triple trailer
truck up the Grapevine, a 6% grade pass on 1-5. The triple was the slowest
truck on the road and blocked traffic in the right lane. The lighter trucks
passed the triple in the two lanes to the left, leaving only one lane for cars.29
Driving
down steep grades can also mean serious braking problems. According to UMTRI,
“Given that the pounds of brake mass to pounds of vehicle mass is limited for
trucks, there is a greater tendency for truck brakes to overheat than there is
for car brakes.”3° In other words, a truck’s brakes can overheat
when in constant use going down a hill. When that happens, the brakes fail to
work properly, particularly when brakes are out of adjustment which, as I noted
earlier, they often are.31 That is why we build truck escape ramps.
Finally,
a recent AAR study found that bigger trucks would result in 1,000 additional
LCVs each day on 1-15 from Chicago to Los Angeles. That is a tremendous amount
of truck traffic.
The Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act
I
am here today to ask you to reject any increases in truck size and weight. But
I also ask you to take it one step further. There are loopholes in the current
law that allow trucks to get longer and heavier, and weights on the National
Highway System (NHS) are being ratcheted up. The Safe
Highways
and Infrastructure Preservation Act, which has been introduced in the House of
Representatives, would put a stop to these backdoor increases. The bill would
establish common sense truck size and weight limits on the National Highway
System and close loopholes in the law that allow longer and heavier trucks. I
urge you to support a similar measure in the Senate.
This
is what the bill would do:
1. The
bill would freeze all current trailer lengths on the NHS.
Trucks have been getting longer. There is no Federal trailer length
maximum, only a minimum of 48 feet. The standard trailer length has increased
over time from 25 feet in 1946 to 53 feet today. Eleven states allow trailers
57 feet or longer to operate regularly, with more than half of these having
legalized the extra long trailers since 1990.32 H.R. 3132 would freeze all
current trailer lengths on the National Highway System.
2. The bill would freeze all overweight permitting practices.
Trucks have been getting heavier on our Interstate highways. Truck
operators are applying for — and getting — more “multiple trip divisible load”
permits to run well over the Federal legal limit. States that issue these
permits claim grandfather rights to allow trucks to operate over the Federal
legal limit. H.R. 3132 would freeze all overweight permitting practices.
3. The bill would extend the Federal Interstate weight limits to
the entire National Highway System, grandfathering in higher weights. The bill
would also extend the LCV Freeze to the entire NHS.
Trucks have also been getting heavier on the non-Interstate portions of
the NHS.
Federal truck weight limits, including the LCV Freeze established by
ISTEA in 1991, are limited to the 44,000-mile Interstate Highway System. By
contrast, state weight limits apply to the more than 156,000 miles of NHS.
In June of 2001, Ohio raised the allowable tandem axle weight on NHS
routes from the Federal limit of 34,000 pounds to 40,000 pounds. Georgia raised
the allowable tandem axle weight on NHS routes from 37,340 pounds to 40,680
pounds three years ago.
If NHS weights continue to rise across the country, Congress will be
faced with similar pushes for heavier Interstate weight limits.
4. The
bill would address illegal overweight operations.
About 10-20 percent of trucks are operating illegally overweight.33
The US DOT says that a truck operator who runs at 10,000 pounds over the
Federal legal limit for one year will earn an extra $25,000.34 That
is a huge profit incentive, especially when fines across the country often do
not even cover the cost of filing the paperwork for the citation, let along
acting as any sort of deterrent.35 H.R. 3132 would direct the US DOT
to establish a model fine system.
The
Federal government has a responsibility to keep trucks from becoming bigger and
more dangerous. I ask that you support this measure.
Conclusion
Thank
you for inviting me to testify today. I am happy to answer any of your
questions.
Endnotes:
1 Nevada Department of
Transportation (NDOT) (Bridge Study) 1994
2 US DOT’s National Bridge
Inventory, 2000.
3 US DOT, 1999 Status
Report on the Nation’s Highways, Bridges and Transit: Conditions and
Performance, Report to Congress, p. 3-14.
4 US DOT Study, Vol. III,
Table Vl-2, p. Vl-2.
5 Federal Highway
Administration, Federal Highway Cost Allocation Study, 2000 Addendum
(Federal HCAS), unpublished Table 3: Federal Over and Underpayment by 20
Vehicle Classes.
6 Federal HCAS, unpublished
Table Vl-5: Federal Equity Ratios for Selected Vehicle Classes Based on
Registered Weights.
7 NDOT, 1999 Highway
Cost Allocation Study (Nevada HCAS), p. 8.
8 Nevada HCAS, Table 17, pp.
31 & 37.
9 NDOT, (Report), August
2000.
10 US DOT’s Status Report,
Exhibit 7-1, p. 7-5.
11 NDOT, 2000 Nevada
Traffic Crashes (NDOT Crash Report), p. 23.
12 US Department of
Transportation, Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study (US DOT
Study), August 2000, Volume Ill: Scenario Analysis, p. Vlll-5.
13 US DOT Study, Vol. III,
Figure Vlll-1 1, p. Vlll-12.
14 California Department of
Transportation, Longer Combination Vehicles Operational Test
(CalTrans Operational Test), 1984, video narrative accompanying the written
report.
15 CalTrans Operational
Test, Fig. 9, p. 41.
16 University of Texas
Center for Transportation Research, An Assessment of Changes in Truck
Dimensions on Highway Geometric Design Principles and Practices, 1981.
17 US DOT Study, Vol. III,
p. Vlll-8.
18 NDOT Crash Report, p.
26.
19 Commercial Vehicle
Safety Alliance, Final Report on Roadcheck 2000, Appendix A.
20 US DOT Study, Vol. III,
p. Vlll-1 1.
21 Richard Radlinski of the
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, “Braking Performance of Heavy
U.S. Vehicles,” Society of Automotive Engineers Technical Paper Series,
International Congress and Exposition, Detroit, Ml, February 23-27, 1987,
Figures 9 & 16, pp. 8 & 12.
22 US DOT Study, Phase 1,
Working Papers 1 & 2: Vehicle Characteristics Affecting Safety, prepared by
the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, 1995, p. 38.
23 US DOT Study, Vol. III,
p. Vlll-1 1.
24 US DOT Study, Phase 1,
Working Paper 5: Roadway Geometry, prepared by the Battelle Team, 1995, Fig. 1,
p. 4.
25 Transportation Research
Board, Regulation of Weights, Lengths, and Widths of Commercial Motor
Vehicles (TRB Report), Special Report 267, May 16, 2002, p.3-21.
26 TRB Report, pp. 2-21 -
2-23.
27 Other state officials
who have written letters (of which I am aware) are the Secretaries of the
Florida Department of Transportation and the New Mexico State Highway and Transportation
Department; the Illinois Secretary of State; and the Governors of Arkansas,
Minnesota, Mississippi, Nevada and Rhode Island.
28 Oral statement of Edward
V. Kiley, Senior Vice President, American Trucking Associations before the
Committee on Public Works and Transportation, US House of Representatives, May
4, 1982.
29 CalTrans Operational
Test, video narrative accompanying the written report.
30 US DOT Study, Phase 1,
Working Papers 1 & 2, p. 13.
31 Radlinski for NHTSA,
pp. 11-12.
32 The eleven states and
their year of legalization are Oklahoma (1983), Wyoming (1984), Louisiana
(1985), New Mexico (1986), Texas (1989), Colorado (1990), Kansas (1991),
Arizona (1991), Florida (1992), Mississippi (1993) and Alabama (1993).
33 US DOT Study, Phase 1,
Working Paper 10: Enforcement, prepared by the Battelle Team, 1995, pp. 2-3 and
Transportation Research Board, Special Report 225, Truck Weight
Limits: Issues and Options, National Academy of Sciences, 1990, p. 141.
34 Church and Mergel, Effectiveness
of Violator Penalties in Compelling Compliance with State Truck Weight
Limits, prepared for the US DOT, September 2000, p. 12.
35 See Church and Mergel,
pp. 19 & 20 for a list of first offense fines by state. In the contiguous
states, the lowest fine for a 10,000-pound illegal overload is $55 in Delaware;
the highest is $2,625 in South Dakota
Nevada for Safe Roads
State and Regional Organizations
Nevada Conference of
Police & Sheriffs (NCOPS)
Nevada State AFL-CIO
Nevada Alliance for
Retired Americans (NARA)
Nevada Parent Teacher
Association (PTA)
Peace Officers Research
Association of Nevada (PORAN)
Southern Nevada Council
UAW Retirees
Southern Nevada Fire
Chiefs Association
Southern Nevada Fire
Prevention Association
Local Organizations
Clark County Chapter 4530
NARA
Clark County Commission
Las Vegas Police
Protective Association
Reno Police Protective
Association
Republican Women of Reno
Teamsters Local 533
Teamsters Local 631
Washoe County Commission
Washoe County Medical
Society
Community Leaders
Andy Anderson, President,
NCOPS
Charlie Cox, President UAW
Local 2162, Sparks
Garth Dull, former DOT
Director
Jane Feldman, Conservation
Chair, Southern Nevada Group of the Sierra Club
Clarence Fend, AARP
The Honorable Bob Ferraro,
City of Boulder City
Robert “Bob” Forbuss, Vice
Chair, Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority
Dario Herrera, Chairman,
Clark County Commission
The Honorable Charles
Home, City of Mesquite
Jim Hulse, retired
Professor of History
Wayne R. King, Teamsters
Construction Division
Helen Klatt, PhD, Past
President, Nevada Federation of Republican Women
Cheryl Lau, former
Secretary of State
Stan Olsen, Government
Liaison, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police
Bette Renwick, President,
Republican Women of Henderson
Ken Riddle, President, Southern
Nevada Fire Chiefs Association
Danny Thompson,
Secretary-Treasurer, AFL-CIO
Linda Wilcock,
President-Elect, Greater Federation of Women’s Clubs