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Pike Company Drops Suit Over Higher Coal Truck Weight Limits

Posted on: Monday, 31 October 2005, 21:00 CST

By John Cheves, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

Oct. 30--A Pike County trucking company has quietly dropped its lawsuit challenging the law that allows overweight coal trucks on state roads.

An attorney for D.R.T. Trucking admitted the suit was filed to pressure the General Assembly last winter to pass a controversial bill that would have expanded the coal industry's weight exemption, so trucks hauling gravel, sand and other minerals also could haul at 60 tons. The weight limit is 40 tons, except for coal trucks.

The bill failed after an unusually bitter fight in the legislative session's final days. Both the bill and the suit were supported behind the scenes by Leonard Lawson, who dominates Eastern Kentucky road construction and state politics.

"The lawsuit was a means to an end," said lawyer Jon Woodall of Lexington. "There had to be a lawsuit to get the legislative push we sought."

Pike Circuit Court officials said the suit, filed in 2004 against the state Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, has been inactive for months and is set for automatic dismissal in coming weeks.

D.R.T. Trucking owner Dennis Thacker did not return calls seeking comment. His wife, Donna, who works at Lawson's Mountain Enterprises, said: "I don't think he's going to do anything more."

During the 2005 legislative session, Lawson's allies in the General Assembly warned that the lawsuit would force a judge to strike down the coal industry's unique weight exemption as discriminatory. That would reduce coal loads, wreck Eastern Kentucky's coal-based economy and hurt hundreds of families, they said.

"They can't make a living at 80,000 pounds!" state Rep. Howard Cornett, R-Whitesburg, screamed in one unusually heated House floor debate in February. "Shut down the coal industry, and we'll shut the state down!"

He did not return calls last week. He attended a 2006 campaign fund-raising party for himself Wednesday at the Landmark Inn in Pikeville, headlined by Lt. Gov. Steve Pence, who heads the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.

Lawson also did not return calls.

In an interview last spring, Lawson said he wanted heavier gravel truck weights to help 70 independent truck drivers who work for his companies. They haul 60-ton loads of coal north out of the mountains to Ohio River barges, he said, but they are limited to 40-ton gravel loads when they drive back south to his plants.

"The only thing I ever thought was that the law, as it stands, is very unconstitutional," Lawson said.

In June, Lawson's asphalt company sent a letter to Eastern Kentucky counties warning that, because of the overweight truck bill's defeat, asphalt prices would climb. County officials complained, but Lawson controls the regional market.

Highway safety an issue

Legislators and citizen-activists who opposed Cornett's bill argued that adding more 60-ton trucks to the roads would increase traffic deaths and road damage.

Last week, opponents said they always suspected the Pike County lawsuit was a ruse to pressure the General Assembly, trying to make a bad bill look necessary to save the coal industry.

"I'm shocked, shocked I am!" said a laughing state Rep. Rob Wilkey, D-Scottsville. "No, seriously, I'm just a little surprised they're being so candid right now."

With the bill defeated, and the suit headed for dismissal, Eastern Kentucky motorists can hope that nobody will try to revive the push for 60-ton gravel trucks, said Dean and Nina Cornett of Letcher County.

The Cornetts -- no relation to the Whitesburg legislator -- lobbied against the overweight truck bill alongside Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a grass-roots group.

However, Nina Cornett said she wants someone to revive the question raised by the suit: Why should coal trucks be allowed to drive 20 tons heavier than other trucks?

"There is no good reason for it," she said. "If this lawsuit had proceeded, I think it would have ended up striking down the law."

Everyone who lives in Eastern Kentucky has horror stories about coal trucks, the Cornetts said. They said they were forced off a Letcher County highway two weeks ago by a massive coal truck speeding around a curve.

"When I saw him coming around, he was straddling the center line, like he didn't have any control anymore," Dean Cornett said. "We had to go entirely off the asphalt. We're just lucky there was dirt and weeds, so we didn't overturn."

State cracks down

The General Assembly in 1986 created a special exemption in the 40-ton weight limit for coal trucks. No lawmaker in recent years has made a serious effort to revisit the subject.

Vehicle Enforcement Commissioner Greg Howard has cracked down on overweight trucks of all kinds, particularly in Eastern Kentucky, taking in $55,000 in fines last year compared with $2,729 in 2003. Howard's crackdown prompted both the trucking lawsuit and the overweight truck bill.

But Howard, in an interview Friday, said he had no opinion on repealing the coal-truck exemption.

"We're in the enforcement business," Howard said. "We'll enforce whatever the rules are."

Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association, defended the exemption as necessary for the pay of coal truckers and the overall health of the coal industry, which has come to depend on overweight loads.

Caylor said shrinking coal trucks from 60 to 40 tons wouldn't make Kentucky roads any safer, because the coal industry would have to put 50 percent more trucks on the road to compensate. Motorists have to decide if they want to face fewer 60-ton trucks or more 40-ton trucks on the highways, he said.

"It's a philosophical argument, I guess," Caylor said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Lexington Herald-Leader, Ky.

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Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, Ky.)

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