:rolleyes:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07149/789707-85.stm
Legislator wants trucks to move over, slow down
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
By Tom Barnes, Post-Gazette Harrisburg Bureau
HARRISBURG – A senator from suburban Philadelphia is pushing a speed-limit proposal for trucks that’s sure to upset truckers who use the Pennsylvania Turnpike and other limited access highways in the state.
Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-Montgomery, has introduced a bill that would limit truckers’ speeds to no more than 60 mph on the turnpike and other highways – five mph less than the posted 65 mph speed limit.
His bill, Senate Bill 369, would restrict truckers to the right-hand lane of the highways, even if a truck doing less than 60 was already traveling in that lane. In other words, the faster truck wouldn’t be allowed to pass the slower truck.
Mr. Greenleaf said he travels the turnpike regularly from his home to the Capitol in Harrisburg, and he sees the proposal as a way to increase safety for all traffic, especially cars and other smaller vehicles.
“We’re just trying to slow trucks down and keep them from going from lane to lane,” he said. Sometimes when he’s traveling on the turnpike he gets caught between two trucks and “it’s dangerous,” he said. “Cars are just midgets compared to trucks.”
He said 10 states, including Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, have differential speed laws for trucks. He maintained that if the large trucks were restricted to the right-hand lane and forced to stay at 60 mph, cars would be able to pass them more safely in the left lane.
He said that in 2005, the most recent statistics available, Pennsylvania had 183 deaths in accidents involving tractor-trailers. “It would be safer if we had a speed differential,” he contended.
His proposal would apply to trucks weighing at least 26,000 pounds, which would include most 18-wheelers, semis, tandem trucks and even some smaller trucks.
Trucking industry officials, not surprisingly, don’t like his idea, and even turnpike spokesman Bill Capone said he’s not convinced the speed differential idea will increase safety.
Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said requiring trucks to travel at slower speeds does not promote highway safety.
“It does exactly the opposite by requiring that vehicles are constantly in conflict with each other,” he said.
As far as lane restrictions for trucks, he said, that “would be an ill-advised step to take. Such restrictions invariably cause more problems than they fix. Trucks and other vehicles need to be able to move over a lane when necessary. When you start restricting vehicles to certain lanes, you end up with more vehicles tailgating and making unsafe passing maneuvers in all lanes.”
Mr. Capone said the turnpike commission studied the idea of differential speeds several years ago and decided there was no clear evidence that they made the road safer.
“The study indicated that reducing the speed for trucks didn’t necessarily reduce accidents,” he said. The only solid argument in favor of holding trucks to a lower speed was that it reduces the stopping distance for the heavy vehicles, he added.
“But you might create more congestion by having all the slower-moving trucks in the right lane,” he said. It could create dangerous situations on the downhill portions of the turnpike, when faster trucks would tend to tailgate the slower trucks in front of them without being able to pass them, he added.
“So we decided to keep the speed limits for all vehicles uniform,” Mr. Capone said.
Mr. Greenleaf concedes he probably has a struggle ahead of him to get the lower speed limit for trucks enacted. He’s the senator who has fought for years – so far without success – on another controversial issue, enacting a statewide ban on smoking in workplaces and public places like bars, restaurants and casinos. He’s hoping for a vote on that bill in June.
The speed-limit bill is before the Senate Transportation Committee and it isn’t known when a vote might be held.
“I’m persistent,” Mr. Greenleaf said. “This is going to be a long battle.”
