Trucking Safety Ideas Including Truck Only Lanes are being Studied by Different States

By October 26, 2007July 18th, 2019Highway Safety, Trucking Regulations

Tractor trailer accidents can be catastrophic when a truck collides with a car. States are considering various ideas to make the highways safer for cars dealing with trucks.
The following is a list of states that are considering making interstate highways:safer for cars by making truck only lanes:
• Florida:is banning big trucks from the far left lane of I-4 on a 60-mile stretch between Tampa and Orlando.stretches of I-75 and I-95 elsewhere in the state have similar restrictions.
• Georgia: is considering truck-only toll lanes on parts of I-75 northwest of Atlanta and on a 20-mile stretch of the I-285 beltway that surrounds the city..
• Arizona, California, Texas and the Gulf Coast states:are using a grant to study segregating truck and automobile traffic on stretches of I-10.
Missouri, Illinois and Indiana are studying the possibility of adding truck-only lanes on I-70 from Kansas City, Missouri to the Ohio-West Virginia border study is one of six funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation to find ways to reduce congestion and improve freight delivery across the nation.
The $3 million grant will pay for Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio to examine the feasibility and cost of adding two truck lanes in each direction on the 750-mile stretch.. The study likely will begin within a year, said Andrew Dietrick, spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation. Among other things, it will explore how to fund such an endeavor. One option could be tolls for trucks using the dedicated lanes.. The lanes would be built specifically for big trucks, which means they could be designed to carry heavier loads than now allowed, which could provide the trucking industry with greater efficiency in moving goods, Dietrick said feasibility study typically is the beginning of a long process that can take years for a highway project to become a reality.
The federal agency is looking for ways to improve safety along the stretch of I-70, where average daily traffic ranges from more than 45,000 to 250,000 vehicles. Average daily truck traffic ranges from 11,000 to a maximum of more than 26,000..By 2035, the average daily traffic will increase to more than 100,000, including an average of 25,000 trucks.
Truckers and the trucking industry generally support exploring options that could ease their travel and improve safety.”If they are looking outside of the box to try and help reduce traffic and decrease accidents and fatalities, fantastic,” said KeVin Roberts, director of safety and membership for the Indiana Motor Truck Association: “Basically it boils down to trying to separate as much as possible trucks from cars,” he said. “The money it will take to make something like that happen is tremendous.”
Congestion, though, is an issue for truck drivers, both from a safety (cars can stop more quickly than trucks) and a monetary standpoint, Roberts said traffic backups that leave truck drivers idling in traffic are a financial issue for them, too. “That’s how big trucks make money, by moving freight.”