A coalition of local officials from across the country are calling on Congress to oppose proposed legislation that will allow an increase in the length and weight of large trucks traveling on commercial highways.
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“Longer and heavier trucks would cause significantly more damage to our transportation infrastructure, costing us billions of dollars that local government budgets simply cannot afford, compromising the very routes that American motorists use every day.”
Road wear scales as a cube of vehicle weight, so unless the heavier trucks are only 4.6% heavier than two trucks they’ll cause more damage to the roads while consuming less fuel and therefore producing less fuel tax revenue which is used to repair the roads.
Per axle.
This is a good thing
Yes, and unless that road weight per axle is only 4.6% higher it’s going to cause more road wear than just using two trucks.
And consuming less fuel is good, provided we find a way to pay for the increased repairs we’ll need.
The federal diesel tax rate is 24.4 cents/gallon and hasn’t been changed since 1993 [not indexed to inflation], a time period that’s seen other inflation raise prices by some 65-75%.