THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 17, 1995 TAG: 9504150218
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 09 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALAN ABRAMS, JOURNAL OF COMMERCE
LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
Federal regulations on overweight trucks carrying marine containers are threatening to create a bureaucratic nightmare for port users, New York truckers said.
Truckers had pushed hard for the regulations, due to come into effect nationwide June 27, because they shift the legal burden off the trucker for determining whether a container is overweight. But the written regulations have created unexpected problems.
``Nobody knows how to make this work,'' said Dick Jones, administrator of the Bi-State Harbor Carriers Conference in New York.
The confusion has arisen because the regulations insist that somebody certify the weight of a container so that individuals may be held liable if a trucker is ticketed for driving overweight. The problem is that there is no procedure for weighing containers on the docks.
Bills of lading from shippers overseas do indicate the weight of the cargo coming into the United States, but those weights are often understated, say port executives.
In light of the difficulty of holding foreign companies liable, freight forwarders and steamship lines in the United States are jockeying with each other to avoid being the entity to certify the accuracy of the weights. by CNB