Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 7, 1992 TAG: 9202070390
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LEGISLATURE
THE NEWS story began: "Those 18-wheelers that whoosh by you as you head out of town on the interstate may soon get license to do it."Precisely. Drivers of the big rigs often exceed the state's 55 miles-per-hour speed limit for trucks, even whooshing past cars traveling at their legal speed limit of 65 mph. It's not a common sight to see a large truck stopped by police and ticketed for speeding on the interstates, or police taking action to break up truckers' convoy games that are unsafe at any speed.
Yet here comes the trucking industry again, asking the General Assembly to raise the speed limit for trucks on rural interstates to 65 mph. That's the ticket, the industry says, for fast, faster, fastest deliveries of the pay load.
In fairness to the trucking industry, collisions involving trucks on rural interstate highways have decreased since 1988. But guess what: That's the year Virginia set the different speed limit for cars and trucks. And still, the number of truck-related accidents and fatalities remains too high.
In 1990, there was a total of 11,071 truck-related crashes on all Virginia roads, with 138 fatalities. A total of 326 truck crashes, with 10 fatalities, occurred on Interstate 81. In 1991, the Virginia Transportation Research Council says, 14 of 67 fatal crashes on rural interstates involved tractor-trailers.
There's no need to recount horror stories that most people who have driven cars on I-81 can tell about close encounters with lead-footed truckers. Suffice to say there's a safety issue the legislature ought not to ignore.
In the House of Delegates Tuesday, it was argued that accident rates wouldn't increase if states allow both trucks and cars to go 65. That's debatable. And maybe accident rates would decrease if law-enforcement officials enforced the 55-mph limit for trucks that's on the books.
If some truckers routinely ignore the lower speed limit now, it's reasonable to assume a good number would exceed, to a similar extent, the higher speed limit.
Credit the Roanoke Valley's four-man delegation in the House - Steve Agee, Dick Cranwell, Vic Thomas and Chip Woodrum - for voting with the common-sense minority against the proposal. The hope must now be that the Senate will kill the bill.