Legislatures have been toying around with the idea of raising the trucking weight limit from 80,000 pounds to 91,000 pounds on the national interstate system. The bill that contains the provision (the Safe, Flexible, and Efficient Trucking Act) and its sponsor, Representative Reid Ribble of Wisconsin, have taken some serious heat from those in the transportation industry.
The Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) in particular is none too happy about it, and they recently sent Representative Reid Ribble a letter of protest, according to Transport Topics (TT). The TCA believes that this enactment would hurt the trucking industry as a whole, and is ultimately unnecessary.
Raising the weight limit by 11,000 pounds would only benefit a small minority of the trucking industry (10%-20%, says the TCA). For most, it would usher in a slew of maintenance updates that would be very costly for all types of fleet owners.
To compensate for the extra weight, trucks would need to be equipped with a third axle, which alone would cost between $3,000 and $5,000 per truck, according to TT. On top of that, there are a great deal of nonspecific upgrades and repairs for trucks with minor wear and tear that aren’t quite fit to handle an extra 11,000 pounds. All in all, this would be a very expensive change to the status quo.
And, to make matters worse, the added freight would reduce fuel efficiency. Therefore, fleet owners are increasingly unhappy, as the new provisions would make the cost of fueling their trucks significantly more expensive than before.
The TCA will continue to fight this bill as it bounces around from stage to stage in the lawmaking process. As you wait to hear whether or not it will pass through this stage, you can capitalize and make a change to your business that you can control right away—you can get a safe, debt-free cash flow using invoice factoring. But, it can be very hard to find the best freight broker factoring companies. That is where our team of experts can come in, and ultimately help your company expand.