FOR years, the practice of trucks traversing the nation’s roadways, overloaded with cargo and operating with disregard for life and property, has gone unpunished; not for a lack of regulations, but mainly because of a lack of enforcement.

But, according to director of the Island Traffic Authority (ITA), Paul Clemetson, who has expressed amazement at the high level of non-compliance among truck operators, “those days are over”.

Overweight trucks, the authorities contend, are shortening the life of the island’s roads and costing millions of dollars in repeat repair works.

Clemetson revealed that based on current trends, engineers have found that the life of roads built to provide effective service for 15 years have been reduced to two years. He mentioned corridors such as the Bustamante Highway in Clarendon and the Yallahs main road in St Thomas, as evidence of the negative impact of overweight trucks on road surface.

And guided by the message, ‘Truck Overload Destroys Our Roads’, Clemetson says an ITA enforcement team has been setting up mobile weight scales at select locations, and screening haulage vehicles to ensure they comply with stipulated weight limits.

The enforcement team reported that for the period December 2009 to late February 2010, 111 vehicles — 50 trucks and 61 articulated trailers — were inspected.

Of the 50 trucks weighed, 35 or 70 per cent were found to be overweight and of the 61 articulated trailers, 25 or 41 per cent were found to be transporting weight in excess of the legal limit, the report said.

“What we found to be even more startling was that of the 31 trucks found to be overweight, 11 of these had excess weight beyond 10,000 kilogrammes. Of the 25 articulated trailers that were found to be overweight, six of these were in excess of 10,000 kilogrammes,” said Clemetson.

The legal weight limit is determined by the axle of the trucks and ranges from 10,000 klios to 50,000 kilos. However, the fine for contravention of the weight limits is a mere $800, regardless of the load or the size of the vehicle. Admitting that the fine was ineffective, ITA chief inspector Clive Williams said that authority has the power, however, to request that an offending vehicle is offloaded at the owner’s expense. “We are now moving to make the fine far more significant,” he told Auto.

Clemetson, in the meantime, cited one case where a truck, allowed a maximum of 15,000 kilogrammes, had excess weight of 18,000 kilograms. In total the truck and its contents weighed in excess of 33,000 kilogrammes.

“How a vehicle designed to have a gross vehicle weight of 15 tonnes could be in excess by 18,000 kilogrammes and be moving is baffling. Not only was it observed that the tyres bulked, but the actual frame sagged under the load and the vehicle could hardly move,” he commented.

Clemetson added that a survey conducted by the National Works Agency (NWA) revealed that some truck-operators have exceeded the legal haulage limits by as much as 200 per cent.

“So extreme were the levels of overloading that a 20,000- kilogramme scale, used during the survey to weigh trucks, was destroyed in the process,” said Clemetson. “The extent of damage to the scales shows the severity of the damage to the roads caused by the reckless actions of haulage operators.”

Clemetson added that in order for Jamaica’s roads to adequately withstand the pressure from the trucks with axle loads of 10,000 kilogrammes or more, the asphaltic layer has to be a minimum of 8.3 inches.

“The dilemma is that a lot of our roads have about 3.3 inches of asphalt, which means we are subjecting our roads to distortion and ultimately permanent failure. Once you have just that relatively thin crust of asphalt, you are going to have distortion,” Clemetson contended.

Even the Highway 2000, which he said was built to cushion force in excess of 13.6 metric tonnes with an asphaltic layer measuring 9.2 inches or more, was being affected.

“Even with engineering to that kind of specification, we have been observing failure, and it tells one thing very clearly, and that is that our vehicles are excessively loaded,” the ITA head argued.