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ATA now supports longer and/or heavier trucks

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Dave, unfortunately, is mixing apples and oranges when he compares Canada's transportation system to ours. Canada's population is less than 11% of the United States. http://www.statcan.ca/english/edu/clock/population.htm http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html Its GDP is less than 1/11the size of the United States. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html We have 4,180,053 km of paved roads versus Canada's 493,080 km. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/us.html http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ca.html He ignores the physics of larger and heavier trucks and the danger they pose to occupants of passenger vehicles. http://safety.transportation.org/doc/1p%20heavy%20trucks.pdf As well as the driver psychology of motorists dealing with ultra-heavy trucks. He is correct that ultra-heavy trucks would reduce the total number of trucks on the nation's highways, but does not acknowledge the negative impact on our highway bridges and overpasses http://www.dot.state.fl.us/research-center/Completed_Proj/Summary_STR/FDOT_379.pdf He offers a faith-based assertion that longer and heavier trucks will aid American manufacturers and bring more efficiency to the American economy, which they may, but at what cost? He postulates that we should allow ultra-heavy trucks to approach their "natural weight and length limits" without citing where in nature he found these data. (Is a 200k GVW load and quadruple trailers un-natural?) He doesn't offer a single fact supporting his argument that "transportation policies favor imports over domestic production." We didn't lose our consumer electronics industry because of transportation policies, nor our textile industry for that matter. Should we worry about the trade deficit and our anemic rate of savings? Absolutely, but if Honda can produce a better car in this country than Ford, I'm going to buy the Honda. http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-id.trend19mar19,0,167898.story?coll=bal-business-headlines http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2005/20050414/default.htm Just keep those ultra-heavy trucks off the highways. Dave
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