Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Editorial: Dangerous overloads

The Dec. 26 death of 19-year-old Las Vegan Ashley Swain has focused attention on overweight trucks in Nevada. Waiting for the light to change while on the Cheyenne Avenue off-ramp from Interstate 15, she was crushed when a fast-moving Republic Services garbage truck tipped over onto her car. The truck was more than 18,000 pounds overweight. The driver is facing felony charges of involuntary manslaughter and reckless driving.

Overweight trucks pose immense safety risks for other motorists, in addition to causing road damage that forces taxpayers to bear the costs of more frequent repairs. Las Vegas Sun reporters Christina Littlefield and Eric Leake, in a story published Sunday, revealed recent statistics showing that "Nevada is more overloaded with dangerous and destructive overweight trucks than most of the nation." From January through May of this year, the Nevada Highway Patrol weighed 936 trucks that were moving along highways and secondary streets. Overweight trucks numbered 175, or 19 percent. This exceeds the national average for overweight trucks by more than 10 percent.

Littlefield and Leake talked to truckers and other experts who estimated that Nevada's true statistics for overweight trucks are probably a lot worse. This is because roadside weigh stations along the highways of Nevada are generally closed and the critically understaffed NHP can only manually check a relatively few trucks. In December the Sun reported that the state has 133 positions for troopers in Southern Nevada, but was filling only 64, largely because of a significant pay and benefits gap between the NHP and local police departments. Currently in Southern Nevada, there are only 10 troopers and four civilian inspectors working for the NHP who are trained in checking trucks for weight and other safety factors, and among them there are only five portable scales. Meanwhile, the highways leading into and out of Las Vegas, and the area's major surface stre ets, are carrying thousands of trucks each day.

The 2005 Legislature took a step toward improving things when it set aside $545,000 for the purchase of another 32 sets of portable scales, enough to equip every trooper in the state who is assigned to truck inspections. But the NHP needs help. Although troopers are specifically charged with inspecting and weighing trucks, and local police departments are not, there are no regulations that prohibit Metro Police, and the police departments of North Las Vegas and Henderson, from getting involved. First, however, they would need certified scales; none of the three departments has them now. Also, they would need officers trained in enforcing the laws governing trucks. Henderson is taking the lead in this area by training all of its traffic officers. We would like to see Metro and North Las Vegas follow suit.

The Legislature also needs to do more. It should provide more funds and manpower so that weigh stations around the state are usually open, instead of usually closed. And, in strategic locations, it should install high-tech scales embedded in roadways, the kind that can give fairly accurate readings of a vehicle's weight. This could alert troopers as to which trucks should be weighed with certified scales. Additionally, we believe companies who hire drivers to move their goods, and not just the drivers, should be penalized for any overweight vehicles on the roads.

Paying more attention to overweight trucks has the potential of saving lives and the immediate benefit of saving millions in road repairs.

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