Tulsa World
By World's Editorial Writers
Published: 6/29/20111:58 AM
Last Modified: 6/29/20113:43 AM
Come this fall Oklahoma's first state-of-the-art commercial truck weigh station will open along Interstate 35 just south of the Kansas border in Kay County. A second weigh station, along I-40 just east of the Texas border in Beckham County, is not far behind. It's set to open in January.
As Dan Case, executive director of the Oklahoma Trucking Association, put it, "It's been a long time coming." His group has long supported a modern network of weigh stations.
Speaking to Tulsa World business writer D.R. Stewart, Case said, "It puts everybody (in the trucking industry) on a level playing field."
Oklahoma badly needs monitoring of overweight tractor-trailers. One legal 80,00-pound truck does as much damage to road pavement as 9,600 cars. An illegal overweight truck increases the damage and reduces the life of the pavement even faster. A 5 percent increase above the legal 80,000-pound truck weight can reduce the pavement life by almost 20 percent.
Being in the center of the nation, many trucks routinely pass through Oklahoma, which struggles mightily to keep its highway infrastructure maintained. The condition of many state bridges is deplorable - they are some of the worst in the nation. Heavy trucks and especially overweight trucks take a tremendous toll on transportation infrastructure... FULL ARTICLE
Posted on
Wed, June 29, 2011
by John Cox