A bill that would have give the California Department of Transportation authority to prohibit long trucks from traveling on certain state highways has died in committee.
SB 636 needed 10 votes from the California Assembly Transportation Committee, but received only eight. It passed the California Senate earlier this summer.
The bill is the result of a crusade by the sister-in-law of a woman killed 10 years ago when she was involved in a crash with a 65-foot-long milk tanker taking up most of the road as it tried to get around a curve on a narrow, winding mountain road. The bill was nicknamed "Kim's Law" after the victim, Kim Mosqueda.
The bill also would have required the California Highway Patrol to track truck-length violations and determine whether length contributes to crashes involving big rigs. That would update a 1989 Caltrans study that found that 22 percent of the state's highways were unsafe for trucks 40 feet or longer.
The California Trucking Assn. and California Farm Bureau Federation opposed the bill. One of CTA's members, a refuse hauler, discovered that his garbage trucks would not be allowed on the winding country road that led only to the garbage dump.
Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, a notoriously anti-trucking group, issued a statement emphasizing their disappointment in the vote.
"Our elected leaders have let us down again," said Darlene Studdard, CRASH Survivors Network Member and sister-in-law of Kim Mosqueda. "Instead of protecting the public safety, their failure to act is protecting the shippers who consistently break the law with trucks so long they have to cross over the center line on curves."
In addition to CRASH, SB 636 was supported by groups such as Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Auto Club of Southern California (AAA), the California
Teamsters Public Affairs Council and others.
SB 636 needed 10 votes from the California Assembly Transportation Committee, but received only eight. It passed the California Senate earlier this summer.
The bill is the result of a crusade by the sister-in-law of a woman killed 10 years ago when she was involved in a crash with a 65-foot-long milk tanker taking up most of the road as it tried to get around a curve on a narrow, winding mountain road. The bill was nicknamed "Kim's Law" after the victim, Kim Mosqueda.
The bill also would have required the California Highway Patrol to track truck-length violations and determine whether length contributes to crashes involving big rigs. That would update a 1989 Caltrans study that found that 22 percent of the state's highways were unsafe for trucks 40 feet or longer.
The California Trucking Assn. and California Farm Bureau Federation opposed the bill. One of CTA's members, a refuse hauler, discovered that his garbage trucks would not be allowed on the winding country road that led only to the garbage dump.
Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, a notoriously anti-trucking group, issued a statement emphasizing their disappointment in the vote.
"Our elected leaders have let us down again," said Darlene Studdard, CRASH Survivors Network Member and sister-in-law of Kim Mosqueda. "Instead of protecting the public safety, their failure to act is protecting the shippers who consistently break the law with trucks so long they have to cross over the center line on curves."
In addition to CRASH, SB 636 was supported by groups such as Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Auto Club of Southern California (AAA), the California
Teamsters Public Affairs Council and others.
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