[Vision2020] 204 Trucks on the Road: Take one Down . . .

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (October 6, 2010) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

---------------------------------------------------------

OUR VIEW: 204 trucks on the road: Take one down ...
Lee Rozen, for the editorial board

Recently, four large trucks have tipped over on roads in the area,
terrifying events for those involved.

We don't know if other motorists contributed somehow, but in each case no
other vehicles were smashed.

One accident involved a log truck near Lewiston, another a potato truck
near Boise and two involved tankers, one on U.S. 12 along the Lochsa River
and one Monday near Genesee, which killed the driver.

The tanker on the Lochsa was carrying diesel fuel. It didn't overturn, but
scraped its tank open against rocks in a bank when it slid off the road.
The cleanup continues.

Meanwhile, the Idaho Supreme Court considers whether to let four huge
loads of oil refinery equipment sitting at the Port of Lewiston be hauled
over that same road to Montana. The first of 200 more loads of similarly
gigantic machinery are arriving from South Korea at the Port of Vancouver.
They, too, are headed for Lewiston, U.S. 12 and Montana. And from there,
they would be trucked to the oil sands of Alberta.

As we all know, these loads are immensely heavy and in some places the
road seems barely wide enough to allow them passage. So, they will travel
slowly, in the dark of night, one at a time, stopping often to let other
vehicles use the road that they must monopolize, if they are to use it at
all.

For the first 50 loads or so, everyone will be alert, checking roads and
bridges for wear and damage. They will carefully note and double-check
every narrow spot and tight corner along the way. Drivers will be rested
and focused.

And when things go well, we believe they will continue to go well.

Checks of roadbeds and bridges become more cursory. Illness forces a
fresh, experienced driver to be replaced. The speed picks up a couple of
miles an hour. A tight corner gets cut a foot closer.

A tree slides a foot toward the road in a heavy rain, and no one notices
until it snags an odd piece of passing steel, unleashing an improbable
landslide.

And the accident we have taken every precaution against happens, slowly
but inexorably.

What then?

The Idaho Department of Transportation needs better answers to that
question than we have heard, so far.

---------------------------------------------------------

Note to Moscow's mayor and city council:  It would be worth your while to
take note of this article.  This is what voices (and attitudes) sould like
when somebody actually GIVES A DAMN!

Seeya tomorrow, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Pendleton, Oregon

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown