What might be described as a truck omnibus bill has cleared it’s first hurdle. The legislation emerged from the Senate Transportation Committee this week. Committee Chair and Bill Sponsor Jimmy Higdon said one provision prohibits tractor-trailer trucks from traveling in the far-left lane of any roadway with three or more lanes.
“You’ll have three trucks abreast, each of them doing five miles an hour more than the other one and it takes ten or 15 minutes to clear each other, so this prevents that and allows the passing lane to be used as it’s intended, to pass,” said Higdon.
Higdon noted most other states already have a similar law in place. Another section of the measure requires towing companies to submit their rates to the state police. The GOP lawmaker added these towing firms are called on a rotating basis to respond to disabled trucks and this would help get at what he calls “bad actor” companies.
It also calls on the Transportation Cabinet to set new fees for overweight and over-dimensional truck permits. Higdon said the current fee is not comparable to other parts of the country.
“You know we’re charging 60 dollars and our surrounding states are charging quite a bit more than that. These overweight loads, you know, they do damage to our highways so we don’t want to be out of line but 60 dollars is not where we need to be,” said Higdon.
In presenting the bill, Higdon said Illinois’ permit fee is $14 hundred, Indiana $25 hundred, and $35 hundred in Tennessee. The omnibus truck bill also allows for increasing the limit responding fire departments may charge for accident response from $500 to $1000.
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