Monster Truck Debate Wheels Into Boise Big Rig Drivers Protest Limiting Bumper Height

Four-wheeling enthusiasts filled a Senate committee hearing Thursday to protest proposed limits on jacked-up trucks.

“I feel it’s invading our rights,” said Rick Monroe, a mechanic at High Mountain Four-Wheel Drive in Boise.

Monroe and other four-wheelers said the bill was flawed, not only because it required lower bumpers on trucks, but also because it required those bumpers to extend the full width of the truck, tires and wheels. Bumpers aren’t made that way, they said.

“You cannot buy an after-market bumper anywhere that will protrude,” said Chris Edmondson, a Boise four-wheeler who owns a 1991 Blazer with 41-inch tires.

The Senate Transportation Committee decided to delay a decision on the bill until Tuesday, when it will consider amending it.

Capt. David Rich of the Idaho State Police said ISP wouldn’t object to changing the bumper-width requirement to the width of the vehicle.

Rep. June Judd, D-St. Maries, surprised by the opposition, said, “A lot of people have not been hearing what I’ve been hearing, I guess.”

A Dateline NBC television program on the issue that aired last week prompted many of the four-wheelers to come out. Judd said she thought the program was “very well done.”

“They just pointed out the dangers of the vehicles,” she said.

Some committee members were concerned that high bumpers are dangerous because they can go over car bumpers in accidents.

In an accident two years ago, a Coeur d’Alene attorney died when a jacked-up truck hit him head-on. The bumper, a foot above normal height, sheared through the car and decapitated the driver.

Last month, a 14-year-old boy died after the car he was a passenger in collided with a jacked-up pickup truck.

But Katrina Woempner, who was a passenger in the truck, has a different perspective.

She believes her husband’s jacked-up truck saved both her life and the life of her unborn baby.

She and her husband were driving in their own lane of traffic when an oncoming car slid on the ice and crashed into the big truck.

“If our truck would have been a (smaller) truck I would have had my baby right there and it would not have lived,” she said. Woempner said that the large trucks are built stronger and protect their passengers better than the smaller trucks and cars.

She and her mother believe the focus should be put on poorly built small cars that crumble under pressure.

“I would never own a car because I don’t believe they are safely made,” Woempner said.

Monroe and other four-wheelers said if the bill went as-is, the newly lowered bumpers would have to be modified to make them wider, and wouldn’t be safe.

“That would need to be changed,” Judd said.

The bill, which Judd has been pushing since 1992, earlier passed the House.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: POINTS OF VIEW The Idaho State Patrol and many motorists contend that jacked-up four-wheel-drive vehicles are a hazard. Accidents between the big rigs and cars have been known to decapitate drivers of the smaller vehicle. But drivers and passengers of the monster trucks say the ruggedly built high rigs may have saved their lives in accidents. They blame the death of occupants of smaller cars on poor safety standards.

The following fields overflowed: BYLINE = Betsy Z. Russell Staff writer Staff writer Winda Benedetti contributed to this report.