Smith: Data points to heavier trucks making roads more dangerous

Recently released crash and fatality data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration underscores dangerous and deadly trends gripping the nation’s roads.

According to NHTSA, there was a 2 percent increase in fatalities in crashes involving large trucks and a 3.7 percent increase in injuries from 2021 to 2022, the most recent year of complete data. There were 168,816 large truck crashes in 2022, resulting in 76,550 injuries and 5,936 fatalities.

But even more alarming is the dramatic increase over the most recent 10-year period — a 50.5 percent increase nationally in fatalities involving large trucks from 2012 to 2022.

Despite the dangers already on the roads, corporate interests are working with members of Congress to find a way around the 80,000-pound federal weight limit, seeking to put far heavier semi-trucks on our roads.

In February, lawmakers introduced the MOVE Act. This bill would grant governors the broad, unprecedented authority to raise interstate weight limits for emergencies and “other unusual conditions, including an open-ended definition of “supply chain disruptions.” This removes congressional authority over interstate commerce, allowing states to raise unilaterally interstate weights with no limit on weight or, ultimately, the duration, leading to a permanent increase.

This proposal follows a prior House committee vote to approve legislation in May 2023 that would allow for an 11,000-pound weight increase over 10 years for trucks across the country under the camouflage of a “pilot project” to gather data on truck crashes, injuries and fatalities. This is nothing more than turning our roads into test tracks and motorists into guinea pigs.

Additionally, lawmakers have introduced other commodity-specific measures that would dramatically expand the roads on which heavier log trucks could operate: 84,000 pounds on five axles or even an enormous 156,000 pounds on eight axles. Similarly, the CARS Act would give automobile haulers an exemption of up to 88,000 pounds.

Like other heavier configurations, log trucks and auto-haulers are at greater risk of rollover and severe crashes. In 2023, log truck crashes were twice as likely to result in a fatality as all truck crashes. Allowing one commodity-specific exemption erodes the 80,000-pound weight limit and sets the stage for all other commodity-specific industries to request similar consideration, resulting in a nationwide increase for all trucks.

Just as troubling, lawmakers already gave some states — Mississippi and West Virginia — weight exemptions for trucks on their interstates. This could lead to a domino effect, encouraging other states to lobby for similar weight increases. The House farm bill, which lawmakers are debating, is another target for commodity-specific exemptions.

Congressional proposals to increase truck size and weight limits are out of touch with the reality of the 2022 NHTSA data and the findings of the 2016 Department of Transportation’s Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Limits Study, which called for no increases in relevant truck size and weight laws due to a lack of data.

This study found that heavier trucks had anywhere from 47 percent to 400 percent higher crash rates in limited state testing. That finding should be enough to preclude any increase in semi-truck weight.

Law enforcement officials nationwide recently went to Washington to make their case to Congress that increasing truck weight would be a dangerous mistake. They stressed the challenges they face to ensure road safety amid rising fatalities.

The officers spoke to nearly 60 members and congressional staff, voicing their opposition to truck size and weight exemptions and combating any attempt to attach the proposals to other must-pass legislation pending before Congress in the next several weeks.

With summer highway travel set to ramp up, Congress needs to put motorists’ lives before corporate interests pushing for more dangerous trucks on our roads.

Donald B. Smith is past president of the New York State Sheriffs’ Association.