Tuscaloosanews.com reported Saturday that Alabama Department of Transportation Director Joe McInnes will meet with representatives of the Federal Highway Administration, state troopers, the Alabama Department of Revenue and the Alabama Trucking Association
to discuss truck safety in the wake of several serious accidents and a surge in truck traffic. The meeting is set for Dec. 20 to develop a truck safety proposal for Alabama Gov. Bob Riley.
The newspaper web site said that an 18-wheeler cattle truck overturned Dec. 2 on Interstate 10 in Mobile, killing a driver in a separate vehicle. In October, a tanker-truck exploded and destroyed the Interstate 20/59 bridge to I-65 in Birmingham.
Earlier this month, an 18-wheeler lost its cargo -- a 40-foot, 45,000-pound industrial drive shaft -- and tore two holes in an I-65 bridge. Since 1988, steel coils have fallen 14 times from flatbed trucks onto Birmingham interstate bridges.
"This meeting will not be a confrontational-type thing," McInnes said. "We are going to talk about roads, load tie-downs, speeds and all issues involved in this."