A panel set up by West Virginia’s governor to look into the problem of overweight coal trucks has recommended stricter fines and increasing coal truck weight limits on certain roads.

The panel has been holding public meetings and listening to expert testimony for the past couple of months, trying to develop recommendations by the time a special legislative session meets later this month. Gov. Bob Wise created the panel after competing bills to address the coal truck problem failed in the regular legislative session and coal truck owners protested after the state tried to increase enforcement.
The panel went with a plan pushed by the governor that would increase commercial coal truck weight limits to 120,000 pounds on designated roads. Other commercial truck limits would still be 80,000 pounds. Weights would be monitored by electronic scales, and shippers and receivers would share in the responsibility for overweight fines. A toll-free hotline would be set up to report violators.
Under the recommendations issued last week, increased fines would range from $40 for a truck that is 4,000 pounds overweight to $1,200 for a truck that is more than 12,000 pounds overweight. The fines would jump significantly when a truck is 25 to 50 percent overweight and for second and subsequent violations. Current fines max out at $1,600 for a truck that is 50,000 pounds or more overweight.
Another recommendation would create a new office charged with enforcing truck safety and weight limits as part of the Public Service Commission. The office would use existing PSC inspectors and Division of Highway agents. Currently, PSC inspectors check commercial vehicles and drivers, while DOH officers check weight limits, meaning a PSC inspector can’t write an overweight ticket and vice versa.
All these are just recommendations; the plan must still be OK’d by the legislature when it meets July 14.
Coal trucks have run at weights more than double the 80,000-pound limit for more than two decades, especially in the southern part of the state. The push to come up with a solution was spurred by a rash of fatal crashes involving overweight coal trucks.

From the Truckinginfo.com archives, see West Virginia Tackles Overweight Coal Trucks,” 4/8/02.