The Source for Trucking News, Opinions and Trucking Jobs | A New Split Speed Excuse

Local governments, truckers split over value of lower speed limit

Cursing a $700 fill-up at the pump, big rig driver Lance Warnacut complained some more when asked about the prospect of lower truck speed limits and lane restrictions in Tennessee.

Come on now, $700??? Even with fuel prices today in TN is $2.15 that’s 325 gallons. Most trucks either have a pair of 125 gal or 150 gal. And you can’t use all 125 or 150 gallons. It’s possible he had larger tanks, but it sounds more like an exaggeration.

“They’re killing us,” said Warnacut, a driver for Slotyme Trucking Inc. Tennessee’s transportation commissioner is considering requests from Chattanooga and Hamilton County for 55 mph truck speed limits on county interstates and rules to confine truck to the right lanes. Officials in Shelby and Knox Counties and the Nashville metropolitan area also have requested lower truck speed limits. They say the changes will fight air pollution.

Slowing trucks down to cut down on air pollution? Idling laws almost make sense, but since the safety excuse is out the window -

Keelor said a National Transpiration Safety Board report shows that separate speed limits are a “problem,” particularly for enforcement officers.Tennessee Trucking Association, said the more than 500 members have a “long-standing policy supporting uniform 55 (speed limit) for all vehicles.” He said separate speed limits result in a “much higher frequency of accidents … rear end collisions.” His group also doesn’t support lane restrictions. “It’s just less safe on a four-lane interstate if you restrict all trucks to the right hand lane,” Huneryager said.

If the excuse is really air pollution…

Transportation Commissioner Jerry Nicely in a letter to Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey said the department is preparing a uniform policy for speed limit requests and said changes should be allowed only if air quality is the primary reason. He also said any reductions would “apply to all vehicles.” “The faster an engine runs the more pollution it produces, on any combustion engine,” said Kelley Walters, a spokeswoman for the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Air Pollution Control Bureau.

Make everyone slow down to 55. But you know that’s not going to happen. Every politician in the state would lose their ass.

If it’s not about safety and air pollutions sounds phoney what could be the real reason?

…said the proposals are nothing but a government “moneymaker” to let traffic officers prey on truck drivers. “You can run by them going 85 and they don’t come,” he said. “They’ll sit there till they see a truck in the left lane.”

reduced speed limits and lane restrictions are just “picking on truckers.” “If the trucks in the United States shut down for two weeks they would do what the trucks want to do instead of what the politicians want to do,” he said. “Everybody wants to take it to the trucks.”

There we go with that strike thing again. It’s that “let’s show them who’s boss and then we’ll get our way” attitude. How professional is that? And what politician or anyone is going to listen to that?

Originally posted 2004-11-08 04:32:00.