By JEFF AMY, Associated Press
ATLANTA – Legislation to increase the weight limit for commercial trucks in Georgia acquitted a state House committee on Thursday over objections by local government officials, traffic safety advocates and the Georgia Department of Transportation.
The House Transportation Committee approved Bill 18-11 after an afternoon-long hearing that lasted more than five hours.
House Bill 189 would raise the legal limit on the weight of commercial vehicles in Georgia from 80,000 pounds to 90,000.
In reality, the Peach State already allows trucks weighing up to 95,000 pounds under an emergency order Gov. Brian Kemp signed nearly three years ago at the start of the pandemic, said Rep. Steven Meeks, R-Screven, the bill’s chief Sponsor.
While truck weights are a contentious issue that the General Assembly has been debating for years, proponents said the three-year experience of the emergency order is a good reason to authorize higher truck weights permanently.
“We did this,” Chad Nimmer, former Georgia Assemblyman, board member of the Georgia Forestry Association, told the committee. “We are in a unique time because now we have evidence.”
A coalition of Georgia’s agriculture and timber industries supports the bill.
Will Bentley, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said the proposed increase in truck weight would allow farmers to transport their produce in fewer trucks, which would save 172,000 truck trips per year, according to a University of Georgia study.
Fewer truck trips translate to savings for local businesses, said Toby McDowell, who runs a lumber business in Butts County.
“I’m one of the few people who can say the pandemic saved my business,” he said.
McDowell said his company struggled before Kemp’s executive order allowed him to reduce the number of trucks he uses to haul logs from nine to five while hauling the same amount of cargo.
But local government officials said the legislation would damage local roads and bridges that budget-strapped rural cities and counties would struggle to repair.
“Rural counties struggle to maintain our roads,” said Nancy Thrasher, Lamar County county commissioner. “I guarantee you local government officials… will be getting more calls from citizens complaining about closed bridges [and] Potholes.”
Georgia Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said his agency was being forced to divert funds from critical freeway projects to repair the damage the legislation would cause. He put up price tags for what House Bill 189 would cost the DOT: $500 million a year to rebuild state roads that would be damaged due to increased truck weight, and $7 billion to replace 1,408 bridges used for heavier trucks would be considered unsafe.
McMurry said projected growth in Georgia’s freight traffic will more than offset any reduction in the number of trucks on the freeways that would be possible with heavier trucks.
“Trucks aren’t going to take any more weight off the roads,” he said. “More cargo is coming.”
Other opponents of the bill have raised safety concerns. Atlanta businessman Steve Owings founded Road Safe America after his 22-year-old son was killed in 2002 when his car was struck by a fully loaded trailer truck that was speeding.
“This is exactly the wrong direction,” Owings said of House Bill 189. “If anything, we should be looking at ways to make trucks safer in Georgia.”
The bill now goes to the House Rules Committee for a vote in the House.
