Trucking news and briefs for Tuesday, March 12, 2024:
Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith has secured a provision in the Transportation – HUD Appropriations Bill, signed into law last week, that allows unprocessed agricultural commodities, including raw or unfinished forest products like logs, pulpwood, biomass and wood chips – at current Mississippi state weight limit of 88,000 pounds – to use the interstate highway within Mississippi state lines.
"Removing these heavy trucks from Mississippi's state and rural roads is a matter of safety, and I think this needed change will improve public safety and commerce in our state," said Sen. Hyde-Smith, whos bill had the backing of the Mississippi Loggers Association, the Mississippi Forestry Association, and the Farm Bureau Federation of Mississippi.
The legislation does not increase the weight of trucks, or introduce heavier trucks to the roadways. It only allows trucks currently operating at the state authorized weights to access the safest route and allows them to divert from less direct rural routes that required them to drive through small towns, school zones, pedestrian areas, and residential neighborhoods. These trucks and weights have been legally operating on rural and state road systems across the state of Mississippi and other states.
Many states require these trucks stick to lower speed surface roads but there have been a handful of legislative reforms allowing operators to use federal interstate system where available when that is a safer, more reasonable option. New England states allow agricultural product trucks permitted for higher weights to transit the interstate systems. Minnesota allows agricultural products to be transported at state maximum weights along a 23-mile interstate transportation corridor. Wisconsin and North Carolina interstate segments, newly incorporated into the interstate system, are grandfathered in at the prior (higher) state weight limits.
More than 7,000 United Auto Workers (UAW) union workers at Daimler Truck North America (DTNA) manufacturing sites in three states have voted to authorize a strike if necessary if-or-when their current labor deal expires April 26.
The measure passed by 96% and covers assembly workers in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee who build Freightliner and Western Star trucks and Thomas Built Buses. Work stoppage authorizations are a matter of routine in labor negotiations and simply allow a union's elected bargaining committee to call a strike if warranted.
