Weight watchers: Are heavy trucks and SUVs illegal on some California roads?
Pop quiz: if you're driving an H2 and you see a sign forbidding vehicles above 6,000 pounds to use a street, do you avoid that street? Neither does anyone else. In a sarcastic, meandering article touching on carbon dioxide, gasoline, SUV-haters, municipal codes, and testosterone, the LA Times looks at the genesis of road weight restrictions and how SUV's trample on them.
The California Motor Vehicle Code has all sorts of byzantine rules applicable to different kinds of trucks and what roads they can use. Certain roads and bridges are explicitly off limits to vehicles weighing more than three tons. But those rules were made when nobody expected the random businessman, housewife, or athlete to be driving a vehicle weighing more than three tons just for the heck of it. (FYI, a half-ton Suburban weighs more than 7,000 pounds before the first soccer mom gets in.)
But in spite of the proverbial legal limbo, a city spokesman said the rule applies, in general, to "business and commercial trucks." Even better, he was backed up by a pickup-truck-driving LAPD officer who let everyone off the hook by saying "We are not going to cite somebody for driving an SUV down the street." Roll on, ladies and gentlemen, roll on.
Thanks for the tip, Stedwoo!
[Source: LA Times]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Hans 4:31PM (4/19/2007)
I think you may be off on the weight of a Suburban. A 2007 Chevrolet Suburban's curb weight is listed at 5,607 lbs. However with passengers it could exceed 7,000 (Gross Weight).
http://www.edmunds.com/new/2007/chevrolet/suburban/100695489/specs.html
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F451 7:06PM (4/19/2007)
Roads, and road beds are engineered and built for certain weight constraints and designations. If you go to either the federal, state, or local authorities they can reveal, from the engineering drawings, just what road specs are applicable to the road in question. This is the reason that semi trucks are not to use certain roadways into cities and counties as the roads are not designed to withstand certain loads and meet the capital expense budget time frames to repair/replace them. So yes, if you get a constant barrage of soccer moms with their obese children onboard you can shorten the life of road. It doesn't matter until you get to the tax aspects as this is where you pay for it—along with other taxpayers, as road are not built for designed, built, and maintained for free. So for those who want to be the big dog around town, they should also be taxed accordingly for the privilege. No matter, as technology is rapidly getting to point where such assessments will be easy to implement. Nothing in life is really free...someone has to pay sooner or later.
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