Newsgroups: misc.transport.road
Message-ID: <8ou0915edvojcau58ufqdpgua32clkah0k@...>
Date: Sun, 22 May 2005 08:36:58 -0400

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/growth/traffic/trucks/series/story/2434452p-883\
8754c.html

Overweight trucks are rolling past the state Highway Patrol and
tearing up North Carolina's highways.

Two and a half years ago, legislators put the patrol in charge of
policing overweight trucks, taking the responsibility away from the
Division of Motor Vehicles. But the transfer of those duties, along
with laws passed by legislators to allow heavier trucks, have turned
overweight trucks loose on North Carolina highways, a News & Observer
investigation shows.

The cost is borne by taxpayers, who must pay millions of dollars a
year for expensive repairs.

Last year, officers caught less than half as many overweight trucks as
they ticketed in 2000. Penalties were also down by more than half.
About 100 fewer officers prowled the state's back roads to weigh
trucks with portable scales or were available to work at the weigh
stations on North Carolina's interstates.

A state Department of Transportation study estimates that only 45
percent of the trucks on interstates are being weighed during the
week. The stations are usually closed on weekends.

Overweight trucks have not been a priority for the patrol or a concern
to state legislators, who have passed 10 laws in 12 years allowing
heavier trucks on state-controlled roads.

The state Department of Transportation protested some of the laws but
was ineffective. Lyndo Tippett, secretary of transportation for the
past four years and a transportation board member for eight years
before that, didn't know about new laws allowing heavier trucks on
state primary and secondary roads until The N&O asked him about them.

...

An internal Highway Patrol memo, written earlier this year after The
N&O started asking about the weight enforcement numbers, listed 16
reasons for the drop in productivity, including a shift in focus of
officers to highway safety.

Getting overweight trucks off the roads is critical because as a
truck's weight increases, the damage it does increases exponentially.
A 10 percent increase in weight, for example, translates to a 33
percent increase in damage, experts say. And even if a truck is
legally loaded -- with a gross weight of 80,000 pounds -- pavement
design experts say it does at least as much damage to a highway as
5,000 cars.

Most road damage comes from two sources: weather and trucks. Experts
can't say precisely how much trucks, legal and overweight, cost the
state in highway damage; estimates run as high as $100 million a year.
The state will spend $2.2 billion this year on highways, including
$615 million on highway maintenance. The top highway official says he
needs $1 billion for maintenance.

On major roads, damage caused by overweight trucks -- or by more
legally loaded trucks than the road was designed for -- can take years
to show up, like health problems in people who smoke.

But on a country lane such as New Hill-Olive Chapel Road, a shortcut
between U.S. 64 and U.S. 1 in southwest Wake County, there's no
waiting period. On that two-lane road there's a patch, or a pothole
needing a patch, an average of every 40 yards for more than four
miles. Roads like it are scattered across the state.

...

The trucking industry says it is responsible for 300,000 jobs in North
Carolina. It is critical to the state's economy; trucks deliver
everything from fruits and vegetables to concrete and steel. And the
bigger and heavier the load, the lower the costs for companies and
consumers.

Driving overweight is so profitable that in the wee hours of the
morning, when the weigh stations are closed and weight enforcement
officers are off duty, the percentage of overweight trucks triples, an
N&O analysis of DOT data shows. The information was gathered with
hidden sensors.

Most of the trucks that are caught driving overweight are moving loads
within North Carolina. Top violators include trucks hauling garbage,
logs, aggregates, construction materials and farm products.

The president of the N.C. Trucking Association says it hasn't pushed
for weight exemptions. "By and large, our members would prefer that
weight allowances not be increased," said Charles F. Diehl. "It hurts
their bottom line, because they're expected to haul more."

...

Col. W. Fletcher Clay, who became patrol commander in July, blames
most of the enforcement problem on the shortage of officers, which
became more acute after the weight enforcement responsibilities were
transferred to the patrol. Since then, there have been "zero
applicants," he said.

That's because the patrol required applicants for weight officer
positions to be trained as troopers. Graduates of a patrol school can
elect to take a higher-paying, higher-prestige job as a trooper -- and
they do. Troopers start at $32,069, about 25 percent more than weight
enforcement officers, and get automatic annual raises until they reach
the top of their paygrade.

Forty percent of the 263 uniformed weight enforcement positions
transferred to the patrol became vacant as officers left and no one
took their places.

Len A. Sanderson, the state highway administrator, is impatient with
the patrol's contention that it can't hire the officers needed to
properly monitor trucks. Sanderson's Division of Highways, which is
responsible for maintaining the state's 78,615 miles of highways, and
the Division of Motor Vehicles are both part of the state Department
of Transportation.

"They're saying they can't get the people, but we got 'em," he said.
"Why can't they?"

--------------------------------------------------------

The HP has had a low priority to man the weigh stations ever since
they took over the responsibility. I've driven past the big modern
weigh station on I-40 just west of Hillsborough numerous times and
seen the big "closed" sign illuminated, even in the middle of the day.
Back when weighing trucks was a responsibility of NCDOT (DMV is a unit
in the department), the weigh station was nearly always manned and
operated.