Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 25, 1990 TAG: 9006260403
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAYMOND J. LAWRENCE JR.
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I-81 has become a strip of lawlessness running through this valley. Anyone who drives the highway knows that tractor-trailers routinely exceed the stated speed limits, often by significant amounts.
On a typical drive on I-81, I can put the cruise control on my little car at 65 mph and be passed by tractor-trailers almost as if I were standing still. Furthermore, many truck drivers are aggressive; for example, running up behind me at dangerous proximity when they are unable to pass. This widespread aggressive behavior makes driving on I-81 a disturbing experience.
In addition to endangering the traveling public, the high speeds of these tractor-trailers are destroying the highways and bridges.
I recall one night when I passed a slow-moving loaded truck coming up the incline approaching Buffalo Creek. As I came down the hill and was crossing the bridge, this same truck took advantage of the long downhill slope and hit that bridge at what I would estimate to be 90 mph. That weight at that speed is destructive.
In response to one of my letters of complaint to the governor and to the superintendent of State Police, the superintendent wrote back that truckers were using citizen-band radios and radar detectors to avoid apprehension. In so many words, he told me that the State Police are being outsmarted by the truckers.
That astonishes me. I know little about law enforcement, but I suggest that even I could figure out how to outsmart the truckers. If the criminals are outsmarting the police, no one is safe anymore.
In response to my complaints, the superintendent also wrote me a lot of gobbledegook about how many traffic citations they had issued in a recent period, of which a heaping 6 percent went to truckers.
But that did not interest me very much. The number of tickets issued, whether high or low, is irrelevant if lawlessness continues unabated. For all we know, the trucking industry picks up the tab as a minor expense for getting its products to market. However, 6 percent seems a rather low figure considering the enormity of the danger that a speeding truck pose, and the numbers of them at this very moment barreling down I-81.
I also note that in many hours spent on I-81, I have rarely seen a truck apprehended by a trooper. I have seen a lot of automobiles pulled over, but an automobile traveling 90 mph is not nearly as threatening to me, or as destructive to public property, as a tractor-trailer at such speeds.
The honorable minority of truckers who do maintain statutory speed limits are also being penalized by the continued lawlessness on I-81. They are later getting to market than their lawless, aggressive colleagues. It is obnoxious to me to see lawless behavior rewarded on a continuing basis.
The abandonment of serious law enforcement on I-81 is something of a puzzle.
Are the State Police undermanned? Are they on the take from the trucking industry? Is there a conspiracy with the bridge and highway-construction industry to make more work at the taxpayers' expense? Have we become such an effete people that we cannot discipline crime in our midst, whether it is felony in the White House or misdemeanors on our highways? Or is it just a case of no one giving a damn in our worn-out bureaucratic system?
I, for one, do give a damn, and I am angry as hell about the longstanding tradition of lawlessness on I-81. But I expect much more blood to be shed on that highway before any action to change things.
In the meantime, I accuse the elected officials of the commonwealth of Virginia, and specifically the superintendent of police, of dereliction of duty in permitting the continuing flouting of the law in on I-81.
by CNB