Dmitri Iglitzin and Steven Hill: Planned bigger-rig law bad policy

You might think that holiday shoppers driving on the nation’s highways would have enough to worry about with bad weather and high gas prices. But unless there is a sudden about-face on the part of the Federal Highway Administration, Americans are about to receive an unwelcome gift that, unlike a wrong-color necktie or bad-fitting socks, could literally kill them.

The FHA, which oversees our nation’s highway system, is about to issue a regulation allowing 97-foot-long multi-truck monstrosities to roar up and down our highways. These vehicle combinations, called “saddlemount vehicle transporter combinations,” or simply “four-ways,” consist of four trucks all linked together with only the first truck having both its front and rear wheels on the ground. On the other three trucks, only the rear wheels touch the ground, the front resting on the truck preceding it. From the side, the four-ways look like elephants holding each others’ tails with their trunks – only much, much larger, and more dangerous.

As one veteran truck driver with 40 years of experience put it in testimony submitted to the FHA, “The notion that a saddlemount 97 feet long and consisting of four semitractors is safe is absurd. All four-way configurations have the tendency to cause the fourth truck to whip and sway. It can quickly become a dangerous situation.”

Another driver, who has been driving vehicle combinations for 20 years, testified, “While driving these setups, the rear truck is unstable and wanders excessively from side to side. This type of setup is a danger to the motoring public, and to myself.”

Many drivers who will have to drive these monster rigs have been outspoken about the safety risks these vehicle combinations represent. So why is this happening, especially around the holidays, when so many families will be on the road?

Under current federal regulations states are allowed to impose an overall length limit of 75 feet on four-ways, and almost every state has imposed such limits. But for the trucking companies, longer truck combinations mean fewer trips and fewer drivers, which cuts their costs and increases profits. The American Trucking Association, National Automobile Dealers Association and other industry trade associations have all pushed hard to overturn these limits regulating giant multi-truck combos.

Last year they were successful. Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the “Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users,” known as SAFETEA-LU. That’s a mouthful of doublespeak for a misnamed law that permits truck combos nearly a third of a football field long to sway dangerously down our roads. And despite a Republican Congress that claimed to stand for state’s rights and less federal interference in local affairs, this law could be interpreted by the FHA as actually prohibiting any state from passing a law restricting four-ways to less than 97 feet.

But vigorous opposition has emerged. Truckers like J.J. Bishop, a longtime Teamster driver, testified about seeing a horrible accident caused by one of these saddlemounts, saying: “The general public doesn’t realize what a risk these trucks are. These combinations have a tendency to sway, making them extremely hard to control and extremely dangerous.”

Besides the firsthand observations of the people who ought to know best – the drivers – the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials testified to the FHA that the new size limitation “has raised serious concerns among some state enforcement officials concerning possible safety and infrastructure issues.”

Congressman Dave Reichert, a Republican from Washington state, has written to the head of the FHA about what he sees as “significant public policy safety concerns” and urging him to allow states to enact their own limits on four-ways.

The good news is that the FHA is still considering whether to give the green light to these behemoths by adopting the interpretation of SAFETEA-LU sought by the trucking industry. There may be time to prevent this dangerous policy from being implemented. But that will only happen if a lot more Americans and elected officials say “no thanks” to this ill-advised regulation. The safety of the traveling public should be prioritized ahead of any impulse to play Santa to the trucking industry this holiday season.