A weighty matter; Potato Commission seeks more efficient trucking
Washington Ag Today May 20, 2011 In Washington a truck carrying potatoes can have a gross vehicle weight of 105-thousand pounds. A loaded truck that heavy can also go to Oregon and Idaho. But, Chris Voigt, Executive Director of the Washington State Potato Commission, says once you go farther south or east the federal highway standard of 80-thousand pounds applies. That means a truck would be one-quarter to one-third empty. Voigt says that wouldn’t have to be the case if a bill in Congress was passed increasing the interstate gross vehicle weight to 97-thousand pounds.
Voigt: “It is not about putting flat out heavier trucks on the road but it is allowing trucks that are heavier as long as they have an additional axle. And what that additional axle does is spread out the weight more evenly so you are not tearing up the road even though the truck is heavier. It gives it actually additional braking power because the extra set of axles is another set of brakes. And in theory you could probably take about 20 percent of the trucks off the road if you were to allow 20% more stuff on trucks.”
Voigt says it just makes a lot of sense.
Voigt: “We can reduce greenhouse gases. We reduce fuel consumption. We can take trucks off the road. We can make highways safer. There is just a lot of good reasons to do this. We hope Congress will recognize this and approve that legislation.”
Other commodities and freight, not just potatoes would benefit from the increase in the federal weight limit.
That’s Washington Ag Today. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today. Good health tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff on Northwest Aginfo Net.
