February 18, 2005

End the carnage

Limit coal truck weights to save on road costs

Kentuckians already pay out the nose for the coal industry's exemption from highway weight limits.

The state cannot afford to have more overweight trucks tearing up roads and terrifying motorists, which is why House Bill 8 should be taken from the orders of the day and buried under a couple of tons of Leonard Lawson's hottest asphalt.

A lawsuit in Pike County alleges that the coal-haulers' exemption is unconstitutionally unfair to other industries.

If that's so, then let's get rid of the favor for coal trucks.

The last thing the legislature should do is compound the carnage by extending the exemption to haulers of gravel, sand, natural gas and other products subject to severance tax, as Rep. Howard Cornett, R-Whitesburg, proposes.

HB 8, which has already cleared committee, would let the favored truckers pay a nominal fee to exceed the state's 80,000-pound weight limit by more than 40,000 pounds on roads that carry more than 50,000 tons of privileged product.

Taxpayers would pay the jumbo price for all those jumbo loads, according to data from the Transportation Cabinet: $25 million a year for increased road and bridge maintenance and pavement rehab and $360 million to replace 350 bridges.

That's the state's costs. Local governments would also take a hit, since most overweight truck trips would start on county and city roads.

The state road fund is already almost busted. It would be crazy to tear up perfectly good roads and bridges and then have to pay to rebuild them.

If the only constitutional solution is to do away with the coal industry's special treatment, that's all the better.