Ohio safety leaders,area police chief reject testing of bigger, heavier trucks on roadways

VANDALIA — Ohio law enforcement and safety leaders, including one from the Miami Valley, are headed to Capitol Hill.

They plan to tell Congress they do not want bigger and more dangerous trucks on local roads.

A push has been made for federal legislation that would test heavier and longer semi-trucks on our nation’s roads — but some say this will endanger motorists.

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“In my experience analyzing fatal crashes, bigger trucks would be a disaster for public safety,” Vandalia Police Chief Kurt Althouse said. “It’s simple physics. More weight means more force, turning what could have been a fender bender into a fatal crash”.

Althouse said truck crashes are at a “crisis level” in Ohio and recent data shows 2021 to be the worst year in recent history.

According to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data, there were 199 crashes involving commercial trucks in Montgomery County in 2021, resulting in nine deaths.

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