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• Letter on Maine and Vermont Truck Weight Exemption (Pdf)
• List of SHIPA supporters (Pdf)
• Members of Congress Join Truck Crash Victims and Safety Advocates Supporting Legislation to Keep Bigger, Heavier Trucks off the Road (Link)
• Recent Poll Shows that 85% of North Carolinians oppose 53 foot tractor-trailers on most state roads. (Pdf)
• Hennepin County Commissioner Mike Opat's Testimony (Pdf)

ACTION ALERT 12.19.12: Dangerous Truck Weight Exemption

Dangerous Truck Weight Exemption

Slipped Into Sandy Relief Bill

Please make 2 Quick Calls/Emails To Your Senators NOW

December 19, 2012

This week, the Senate began debate and will likely vote on the Superstorm Sandy Relief bill, HR 1. Senator Kohl (WI) just added an amendment to the bill seeking a special interest weight exemption which will allow bigger and heavier trucks on U.S. Highway 41 in Wisconsin. If adopted, it would result in a back door deal allowing overweight trucks in excess of 80,000 pounds and would provide a dangerous precedent for other states to allow overweight trucks on their own highways. This exemption does not belong in the Sandy relief bill, and in addition, the bi-partisan passed "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act", MAP-21, (Pub. L. 112-141) contains a provision for a two year study on the safety, infrastructure and economic impacts of allowing increases in truck size and weight (TSW) limits. The Senate should not allow any special interest exemptions before the Congressionally mandated study is completed.

Please call or email your Senators, and urge them to oppose the Kohl Amendment for Truck Weight Exemptions on Highway 41.

Click on the link to find your Senators' contact information:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

WHY THEY SHOULD OPPOSE:

• There is no place in the Sandy relief bill for a special interest exemption that will jeopardize the public's health and safety.

• This special interest exemption will only serve to compromise and setback safety and open the door to other anti-safety earmarks and requests.

• DOT revealed last week that in 2011, truck crash related fatalities increased despite a decrease in overall traffic fatalities. This is the second consecutive year of this dangerous trend.

• Wisconsin's roadways require improvements to safety, not exemptions which will further endanger its citizens.
  • Between 2006 and 2010, there were 335 fatalities in crashes involving large trucks in Wisconsin.

• • According to ASCE, 30% of Wisconsin's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition, and 16% of its bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.

• • Driving on roads in need of repair costs Wisconsin motorists $1.1 billion a year in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs. (TRIP 2012)

• The public adamantly opposes bigger, overweight trucks. Public opinion polls consistently and convincingly show large majorities - 74 percent and more - oppose allowing heavier trucks and for good reason - bigger trucks result in more deaths, injuries and safety problems.

• And, last but not least - No truck size and weight exemptions should be considered while the Congressionally mandated TSW study is underway.

For More Information, contact the Truck Safety Coalition, 703-294-6404

Press Release: Loggers and Truckers Protesting in Minnesota Mislead the Public

Loggers and Truckers Protesting in Minnesota Mislead the Public

Maine and Vermont Overweight Truck Pilot Programs Confirm

Bigger and Heavier Trucks Are More Deadly, Destructive and Costly

To read the press release, click here.

Joan Claybrook's Compelling Letter to the New York Times

The Transportation Bill

Jennifer Tierney's Battle for Truck Safety; Winston-Salem Journal

Kernersville woman helps defeat truck-weight legislation

Jane Mathis Fights for Truck Safety; St. Augustine Record

Tragedy propels local woman to fight increased truck weight allowances

Jane Mathis lost son, daughter-in-law in 2004 crash

Posted: February 5, 2012 - 12:51am

By George Bortle. The Associated Press

David and Mary Mathis were killed on the way back from their honeymoon, on March 25, 2004, after their car was hit from behind by a semi-truck, causing a chain reaction with another truck on I-95 near Titusville.

By JENNIFER EDWARDS

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

David Mathis was a jokester with a mischievous smile, an intern with a local law firm and a man married just five days when a truck rolled over his 1993 Acura, killing him and his bride, Mary Kathryn Forbes.

Both 23, they had graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and had just bought a house in Royal St. Augustine, said Jane Mathis of St. Augustine, David’s mother.

It was that March, 2004, crash on Interstate 95, caused when a semi-trailer truck driver who fell asleep behind the wheel, that prompted Mathis to fight for legislative changes.

“Most loved ones can’t (become activists),” Mathis said. “It’s too painful; they just can’t.”

Most recently, she traveled to the U.S. Capitol to lobby against a House bill that would have allowed trucks to get bigger and heavier and, to Mathis and other safety advocates, that much more dangerous.

The committee Friday morning amended the bill in what a representative for U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation committee, called an “intense markup session” that lasted until 3:30 a.m.

Now the 700-page omnibus bill, called the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, no longer would allow states to increase the weight cap.

Mica said the language disappeared mostly due to rail interests, not safety advocates.

“The freight train operators, if you have heavier weights, they don’t get the business to go on rail,” Mica said.

The amendment also calls for a study to examine how the increased caps would impact safety and infrastructure.

But Mathis still worries that the bill could change again, especially since it is very different from the Senate version, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, MAP21 for short.

The House is to vote on the bill during the week of Feb. 13, said Justin Harclerode, a spokesman for Mica.

Activism as an outlet

It took Mathis a couple of years to heal before she began looking for ways to make a difference.

Then, a friend suggested she join PATT, Parents Against Tired Trucking.

Now, she is a board member of the national Parents Against Tired Trucking and a part of the Truck Safety Coalition.

“It’s a club nobody wants to belong to,” she said.

In the past, she has lobbied for an increase in fines for those driving rigs overweight by 10,000 or more pounds and for those falsifying the paper log books that truckers must keep to show they are not driving more hours per day than allowed.

The fines haven’t increased since 1953, “When Eisenhower was in office,” she said.

That went nowhere.

But still, she keeps trying because David Mathis is always on her mind.

“I miss him every hour of every day,” she said.

She misses his 6-foot-1-inch frame bouncing on her bed and saying, “Hi, Mommy!”

And she likes to remember a particular sermon he gave to the youth at church.

“He was talking about how you should do things to show you have joie de vivre,” Mathis said.

“So he crowed like a chicken in the pulpit, and there was a giant burst of laughter,” she said.

The eerie thing for Mathis is that her son, a youth pastor at Memorial Presbyterian Church, came straight from senior prom night to give the sermon in the morning.

It was called “Forever Young,” she said with a shiver.

She paused.

“I’m lucky to have had 23 years with him,” she said. “Some people never have children at all.”

ABOUT THE TRANSPORTATION BILL

The newly amended version of the U.S. House Bill called the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act would have increased the truck weight cap from 80,000 to 97,000 pounds.

Justin Harclerode, spokesman for Transportation Committee Chair John Mica, R-Fla., said the provisions were considered because they might have provided “economic benefits for commerce, things like that, efficiency.”

And he said there are safety arguments on both sides of the debate, because an Interstate ban on larger trucks in some states would have those trucks driving on local roads instead.

“And some folks would say it’s safer to have that kind of traffic on an interstate,” he said.

Now the bill requires a three-year study to assess what the impact of those changes would be to safety and infrastructure.

The study plus an anticipated lag before Congress votes on a final version reassure local truck safety advocate Jane Mathis.

However, “It’s up in the air,” Mathis said. “There’s a possibility those provisions could come back.”

“What we hope will happen is nothing,” Mathis said. “We just keep fighting away.”

http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2012-02-04/tragedy-makes-activist-local#.TzFFNPn0-Ag

BI-PARTISAN PASSAGE OF A TRUCK SAFETY AMENDMENT TO H.R. 7

Press Conference on Truck Size & Weight

Press Release:

Dangerous House Bill Will Allow Overweight, Oversized Trucks on Highways. Diverse Coalition of Labor, Law Enforcement, Safety Groups, AAA, Local Government, Victims and Survivors Oppose Bigger Trucks Bill as Deadly Public Safety Threat ...

• View the Press Release (PDF)

Media Advisory:

Congress to vote on lifting triple trailer truck ban. Labor, law enforcement, AAA, victims and safety groups oppose bigger and heavier trucks bill ...

• View the Media Advisory (PDF)

Statements:

• AAA Says Size Does Matter on Issues of Truck Safety (PDF)
• Delaware State Trooper Thomas Brackin (PDF)
• Joan Claybrook (PDF)
• Jackie Gillan (PDF)
• Jane Mathis (PDF)
• Ed Slattery (PDF)
• Jennifer Tierney (PDF)

Read more: Press Conference on Truck Size & Weight

Public Opinion Does Not Support Bigger Trucks

• 74% of Americans oppose the trucking industry’s efforts to have Congress change the current law and allow heavier trucks on the roads.

• Nearly three quarters of registered voters oppose increasing the national cap on truck size from 80,000 to 97,000 pounds.

• 66% of Americans oppose changing the current law and allowing trucks carrying heavier loads on U.S. highways. “Support for the measure is anemic (only 16% favor the efforts.) Opposition is deep and transcends gender, age, political identification, and region.”
• Eight out of ten (82%) Americans feel trucks pulling double or triple trailers are more dangerous than those pulling just a single trailer.

• By 77% to 16%, the public opposes increasing truck weight limits.
• 80% of Americans believe that trucks with two or more trailers are less safe than trucks with a single trailer.

• By 71% to 21%, a majority of the American people are willing to pay higher prices for goods in exchange for tougher truck safety standards.

• 88% of Americans oppose allowing bigger and heavier trucks on the highways.
• 80% are fully convinced that “trucks pulling two or more trailers are less safe than trucks pulling only one trailer.”

ACTION ALERT: 1/25/12: Truck Size and Weight - 2 Calls Needed Right Away

• Truck crash fatalities just went up by 9% in 2010.  3,675 people killed is unacceptable – we would never stand for this from airlines nor should we be forced to on our roads.
• The chances of a large truck crash resulting in death and serious injuries increase with each extra ton of weight over the 80,000 lbs. GVW limit in federal law.
• Heavier trucks take longer to stop and roll over more frequently.
• Overly heavy trucks, particularly 100,000 lbs. trucks, dramatically underpay their fair share of taxes and user fees for the repair of U.S. roads and bridges.  States and Congress are already struggling to find funds to address the backlog of road and bridge needs across the country.
• More than 26%, or 1 in 4, of our nation's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
• Poor road conditions cost Americans $67 billion in repairs and operating costs. (ASCE)
• One third of America's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition. (ASCE)
• The "states rights" argument that each state should be allowed to set its own limits is disingenuous and will lead to larger truck limits whether roads and bridges are able to accommodate them or not. If all states bordering one state have higher limits, that one state will not be able to withstand the resultant economic pressures. Allowing states to individually decide weight limits on federal highways ignores the critical role of the federal government to facilitate interstate commerce and avoid a patchwork quilt of limits in interstate commerce.