Wednesday, May 14, 2008 DPWH wants load limit for trucks reduced
IN A BID to safeguard the country's road network, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will ask Congress for a reduction of the allowable or maximum load limit for trucks.
DPWH Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. is pushing to amend the Anti-Overloading Law particularly the load capacity of trucks that ply the different roads and bridges.
The maximum load limit for trucks is at 13.5 metric tons (MTs)/axle. Ebdane wants it to be reduced to 12 MTs or below.
"Under Republic Act (RA) 8794 or the Anti-Overloading Law, the Philippines has prescribed a 13.5 MTs/axle limit, which is higher compared to the load limit in other countries," he said. "When they crafted this law, they must have stretched the allowable limit to the maximum. However, if the limit is higher, then this requires a thicker pavement, which will be more costly for the government," he said.
The DPWH chief cited that the US only allows 9.1 MTs/axle; the United Kingdom (UK), 11.5 MTs/ axle; European Union (EU), 11.5 MTs/axle; France, 13 MTs/axle; Thailand, 9.1 MTs/axle; Pakistan, 12 MTs/axle; and India with 9.3 MTs/ axle.
Ebdane explained that in other countries such as the US, heavy loads such as logs are not allowed in highways.
Instead, these are loaded in trains which transport them to their destination.
"Although overloaded trucks are not the only factors that contribute to the deterioration of country's infrastructure, for the pavement, they are the primary culprits," he said.
With this, the DPWH is planning to engage in a shame campaign against trucking firms that continue to break the law.
According to Ebdane, they are coming up with a listing of owners of trucks that violate the law and publish them in newspapers so the public will know who is destroying the roads.
The agency is also studying the possibility of holding the truck operators civilly and criminally liable for their willful and recurrent violations to the law. (FP/Sunnex)
