The speed limit truckers can travel in Tennessee and the lanes they can use may change soon.

The state’s transportation commissioner is considering requests from the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County to reduce truck speed limits from 70 mph to 55 mph and rules to confine trucks to the right lanes. Officials in Shelby and Knox counties and the Nashville metropolitan area also have requested lowering truck speeds. They say the changes will help fight air pollution.

“We’d have to see what the benefits would be from an emissions standpoint. Can we really reduce ozone emissions that are put out by commercial vehicles by reducing speeds?” said Kim Keelor, a Tennessee Department of Transportation spokeswoman.

All of Tennessee’s largest metropolitan areas failed this year to meet new federal air quality standards. Failure to develop plans to clean up the air by 2007 could result in an end to industrial expansion and large cuts in federal highway funding for the area.

This spring, the Tennessee Air Pollution Control Board recommended reducing truck speeds to 55 mph, to reduce the amount of ozone-causing compounds going into the air.

The state highway department, however, advised that any speed-limit reductions to improve air quality should apply to all vehicles, not just large trucks.

Enacting different limits for cars and trucks would produce safety hazards, they claim.

“Whatever we’re going to have to do is going to have to be done for all,” Ed Cole, chief of planning and environment for TDOT, which sets speed limits, recently told The Tennessean.

Cole said the agency has also advised against differential speed limits for cars and trucks on safety grounds. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association shares the department’s views.

“By lowering truck speed limits, all they would really do is create a safety issue where previously none existed. That is not an acceptable trade off,” Todd Spencer, executive vice president of OOIDA said.

Transportation Commissioner Jerry Nicely, in a letter to Chattanooga Mayor Bob Corker and Hamilton County Mayor Claude Ramsey, said the department is preparing a uniform policy for speed limit requests and said changes should be allowed only if air quality is the primary reason. He also said any reductions would apply to all vehicles.

Nicely said the department would consider confining trucks to right lanes.

“Adopting lane restrictions would be an ill-advised step to take,” Spencer said. “Such restrictions invariably cause more problems than they fix.

“Trucks and other vehicles need to be able to move over a lane to allow traffic to enter the interstates. It’s common courtesy, but this is also about highway safety.

“When you start restricting vehicles to certain lanes you end up with more vehicles tailgating and making unsafe passing maneuvers in all lanes. This isn’t good for congestion or highway safety.”

In addition, Spencer pointed out that for safety reasons, “many states are now passing laws that require vehicles to move over when an emergency vehicle is on the side of the road.

“Lane restrictions that discourage these smart, safe driving practices are just absurd.”

The speed limit and lane changes would not require state legislative approval. TDOT officials expect to make a decision by early next year.

– By Keith Goble, state legislative editor
keith_goble@landlinemag.com