Back in 2007 when the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed, there was just as today a distinct lobbying effort toward allowance for higher weight limits on the National Highway System. The lobby in the years since has had a bill allowing states to boost weight limits to 97,000 lbs. nearly perpetually in process in the U.S. Congress (and perpetually opposed by OOIDA) — this session’s version we recently reported on here, introduced by Rep. Mike Michaud in the House under the Safe and Efficient Transportation Act name back last February. The bill, as with many numerous others that have preceded it, would legalize 97,000 lbs. in tractor-trailer combos provided there’s an extra axle on the trailer to reduce axle-group weights. OOIDA has its own favored weight legislation, which I wrote about in this post.
Truck weight had more or less nothing to do with the critical cause of the Minneapolis collapse back in 2007; initial reports indicate that could be likewise in the I-5 collapse (though the NTSB investigation will no doubt continue for some time), with height of the drilling module housing being hauled by Canada-based Mullen Trucking being the primary culprit for investigation (likewise processes of the state agency that issued the permit for the route and height and potential inattention of either the driver or the pilot car escort, or both). In both Minneapolis and I-5 cases, though, as I recall from prior reporting and recent commentary, it didn’t take long for opponents of the truck-weight measure to chime in. The general tenor of the commentary has weighed heavily on my deja-vu scale.
As wrote Scott Grafton within an hour of Overdrive‘s posting of news on the collapse on its Facebook page, “And people are pushing for longer, heavier trucks…”
In Grafton’s defense, this was before everything that was known about the likely cause of the collapse, but it points to the nimble moves, connections made by the contemporary political mind, where there’s seemingly always a way to make a detail or event mean whatever you want it to mean.
Under our news of the collapse, as drivers discussed the particulars of the accident and some debated just who to blame, a reader posting as “It Could Have Been You” had this to say:
Just like most incidents out here on the road: Too many people jump to conclusions prior to hearing the real story.
The question that lingers: How would those whom automatically jump to these conclusions feel if it were them that were the driver?
