This news story originally provided by The Lexington Herald-Leader

November 2, 2005

Crunch some numbers

Kentucky needs study on truck weight limits

A truck weighing 100,000 pounds with unadjusted brakes travels 25 percent farther after the driver steps on the brakes than an 80,000-pound truck. A 120,000-pound truck can travel as much as 50 percent farther before stopping than an 80,000-pound truck.

That's according to the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and the National Academy of Sciences.

The question of whether it's safer to have fewer 60-ton coal trucks or more 40-ton coal trucks on Kentucky's roads is not, as Kentucky Coal Association President Bill Caylor suggests, philosophical.

It's a question of mathematics and physics -- and economics.

We would love to see a legitimate study of the costs of Kentucky's 40,000-pound favor to the coal industry: What is the cost to taxpayers of exempting coal trucks from the weight limits that apply to the rest of the trucking industry? What is the cost in road and bridge repairs? What is the cost in human lives and injuries?

These are knowable numbers that state policy-makers need if they are to make responsible decisions.

The anecdotal evidence is powerful. Deaths and injuries involving crashes with heavy trucks declined sharply in the Eastern Kentucky coalfields after Gov. Ernie Fletcher's administration cracked down on trucks weighing more than the 120,000 pounds that coal haulers are allowed because of an exemption carved into law in 1986. Other truckers on Kentucky roads must abide by the 80,000-pound limit set by the federal government, based, we assume, on some science.

Coal haulers must pay for licenses entitling them to weigh more than 80,000 pounds. Do these fees even begin to pay for the damage to roads and bridges? The cost of that damage is not just in asphalt. The mega-weights allowed on coal trucks make roads rougher and create ruts that fill up with rain water and ice, endangering all motorists.

The backers of a cynical lawsuit in Pike Circuit Court tried and failed to get the legislature to extend the 120,000-pound exemption to gravel haulers earlier this year. The lawsuit challenged the exemption for coal in hopes that lawmakers would move to preserve coal's special treatment by extending it to others.

The lawsuit has been quietly dropped. But it served a useful, if unintended, purpose by drawing statewide concern to the problems caused by coal trucks.

The public should keep up the pressure and at least demand some real data on the effects of coal's exemption. What's lost if the legislature and governor commission a study?