The American Automobile Association, serving almost 36 million members - 20 percent of the driving public, appreciates this opportunity to comment on motor carrier safety and the need to limit truck sizes and weights on the National Highway System.

Size and Weight Limits

The AAA endorses Congressman Oberstar's legislation, HR 4496, the "Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act of 1994." Unfortunately, some segments of the trucking and shipping industries always seem to be pushing for bigger trucks. The harsh reality is that while increased truck sizes and weights damage roads and bridges, jeopardize public safety, and concern the motoring public, they enhance company profits of some trucking and shipping concerns, thereby enticing them to push continually for bigger and bigger trucks.

Increases in truck sizes and weights tend to be irrevocable. Once allowed, bigger trucks are almost never banned -- regardless of the damage or safety problems they

cause.

AAA is not here to denigrate the trucking industry. Big, heavy combination vehicles are a fact of life on America's roads. They are a necessary fact. The trucking industry employs some 7.8 million Americans and serves every community in the United States. Some two-thirds of all American communities are served by no other mode of

freight transportation. Of the more than 194 million motor vehicles registered for use on America's highways, truck combinations alone represent almost 1.7 million vehicles. Additionally, there are 3.8 million commercial trailers. Approximately 760 billion ton-miles of freight are moved annually by truck - one-fourth of our total freight movement. Without question, trucking is a significant factor in our national

economy.

What concerns AAA and our members are efforts to obtain longer and longer trailers and increases in allowable weights. We believe that it is time to legislate a "cap" on truck trailer lengths and weight and 53 feet represents a reasonable compromise.

The Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982 mandated that states could not prohibit the use of 48-foot trailers; however, it did not prohibit the use of longer trailers. Prior to the STAA of 1982, the trucking industry's workhorse was the 48-foot trailer. It did not take the industry long to capitalize on the use of 48-footers and the move was on to get even longer trailers. Currently, 86.8 percent of the trailer fleet exceeds 45 feet. By 1985, 13 states allowed the use of 53-footers. By 1990, only 11 did not allow them! Today, only one state does not allow them. Now, we are witnessing a move to even longer trailers with over a dozen states allowing trailer lengths of 57 feet or longer.

Obviously, the trend toward longer trailers is motivated by economics. The move from 48 feet to 53 feet gave shippers 300 cubic feet of additional space. The 57-foot

trailer offers approximately 8 percent more cubic capacity than 53-foot trailers. But

AAA survey after survey find big combination trucks high on the publics' list of things they hate to face on our roads. Why? Quite simply, the big rigs are intimidating. These survey results are also consistent with a study released in 1990 by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety entitled, "Older Drivers' Perceptions of Problems in Freeway Use." That study found that older drivers have particularly acute problems interacting with large trucks. Trucks received the highest overall rating of concern regarding freeway driving among the factors in the study questionnaire, and focus group discussions confirmed the prominence of this concern. Sharing the freeway

with large trucks, particularly under increasing congested conditions, makes the public uncomfortable. Several focus group participants indicated that this was the reason for avoiding freeways, and some changed travel plans to avoid periods of heavier truck traffic.

The U.S. driving population is getting older. Improvements in medicine and health care are prolonging usable years. Information from the Federal Highway Administration discloses that licensed drivers 55-59 increased in number by 26.6 percent between 1970 and 1992. Licensed drivers 60 and over increased by 122.6 percent over the same period, and for the group 70 and over, the growth was a whopping 225.3 percent!

With an increasing number of older Americans living in the suburbs, fewer will be able to give up access to their automobiles. As it is, more than 80 percent of trips made by those 65 and over are in an automobile, and that reliance is growing.

Trucks are over-represented in fatal collisions. Over the past several years, combination trucks have experienced fatal crash involvement rates nearly twice those of passenger cars. In 1992, according to National Safety Council (NSC) data, passenger cars constituted 74.2 percent of the registered vehicles yet were involved in a much smaller percentage of the fatal collisions, (57.9 percent).

Medium/heavy trucks had the opposite experience. They constituted 3.9 percent of

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the vehicles registered and were involved in 7.9 percent of the fatal collisions.

Of the total deaths due to crashes involving a large truck and a passenger vehicle in 1992, 98 percent were occupants of the passenger vehicle. The laws of physics are irrevocable. The severity of motor vehicle collisions is a direct result of the energy that is dissipated by the crash. When an 80,000 pound truck crashes with a 2,700 pound automobile, the truck has 30 times more energy and the truck simply overpowers the automobile. It's like hitting an ant with a sledge hammer!

Both AAA and the trucking industry are trying to lessen the safety threat posed by the disparity in vehicle sizes on today's highways. AAA, the American Trucking Associations, and the National Private Truck Council in partnership with FHWA are producing and distributing educational material on how to safely share the roads. We see this campaign as the beginning of a partnership among automobile drivers and commercial vehicle drivers, helping each to understand the needs and limitations of the other. We have also worked with the industry on incident management programs and joined with them this past year to work on the Washington Beltway Area Highway Safety Initiative.

But this does not mean we won't raise our voices to object when the trucking industry attempts to obtain even bigger and heavier trucks.

Over the years the trucking industry has repeatedly contended that the use of longer