Testimony of Congressman James P. McGovern
House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
Sub-Committee
on Highways and Transit
July 9, 2002
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the
Sub-Committee today. I commend you and the members for holding this TEA-21
reauthorization hearing on truck safety. It is, as we all know, a critically
important issue.
Mr. Chairman, I appear before the sub-committee this afternoon because I
believe strongly that any serious and substantive discussion regarding truck
safety begins and ends with the subject of truck size and weight. That is because truck safety is largely a
function of truck size and weight. We know this, not only from recent studies
and reports, but from our shared common experience as well.
Too many of us, too often, have been unsettled while driving alongside or
behind huge triple trailer trucks and other longer combination vehicles known
as LCVs. These trucks can be more than
100 feet in length and can sway three to four feet into adjacent lanes of
traffic, even on a windless day.
In some instances, a truck veering sharply can cause a “crack the whip”
effect, where the wheels on one side of the rear trailer are actually lifted
off the ground. These life-threatening
occurrences are altogether too frequent to be dismissed as dramatized anecdotal
evidence. In fact, the research suggests the danger posed by such trucks is
very real.
The US Department of Transportation’s 2000 Comprehensive Truck Size and
Weight Study confirmed that multi-trailer trucks are especially dangerous. According to the DOT study, if the current
restrictions on LCVs were removed, they would likely have a fatal crash rate of
at least 11% higher than single trailer trucks.
An earlier report prepared for the Association of American Railroads
suggested that LCVs are actually 66% more likely to be involved in a fatal
crash. Similar studies have found that heavier trucks take more time and
distance to stop and merge into traffic, thereby increasing the likelihood of
crashes. Not surprisingly, these same
studies have found that increasing truck weight increases the risk of rollover
crashes and enhances the risk that collisions between trucks and cars will be
fatal for the occupants of the car.
Now, I recognize and appreciate that the Transportation Research Board’s
(TRB) recent report on truck size and weight finds much of the research I have
just cited as inconclusive. And while I
congratulate the TRB for their contribution to this policy discussion, I must
tell you that I am more than a little troubled by their recommendation that we
should instead experiment with bigger trucks on America’s roads and
bridges. I can assure you my constituents
do not care to be guinea pigs in that experiment.
Mr. Chairman, just as our common experience informs our opinion on this
issue, so must common sense dictate the solution. I am pleased to be joined by
nearly 75 of my colleagues in bi-partisan support of HR 3132, the Safe Highways
and Infrastructure Preservation Act. This IS common sense legislation that will
maintain the reasonable limits that currently exist on truck size and weight on
our Interstate System and extend those same limits to the National Highway
System. It does not roll back truck
size and weight, but rather closes loopholes in the current law that have
resulted in a proliferation of overweight trucks.
Ultimately, this legislation will both save lives AND protect the
nation’s multi-billion dollar investment in our highway infrastructure.
Mr. Chairman, the fiscal considerations attendant to this issue must also
not be minimized. According to the Federal
Highway Administration’s 1999 Status Report on the Nation's Surface
Transportation System, it will take $1.13 trillion over the next 20 years
simply to maintain our roads and bridges. But, as we are all keenly
aware, there is a backlog on road and bridge maintenance. Nearly 30% of our
nation's bridges - and 50% of the bridges in my home state of
Massachusetts - are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Now,
we also know that as truck weight increases, the amount of pavement damage
increases exponentially. In fact, according to the DOT's 2000 Comprehensive
Truck Size and Weight Study I referenced earlier, bigger trucks would add more
than $300 billion in costs to our transportation spending.
Mr. Chairman, as Congress prepares to consider the reauthorization of its
major transportation spending bill, I am hopeful that the Safe Highways and
Infrastructure Preservation Act will be adopted in some form or fashion.
The legislation makes sense, the
timing is right and above all else, the American public must be protected from
the danger of still bigger trucks.
Thank you very much.