construction by the War Department. In 1942 alone, the PRA approved 600 access road projects costing over $200 million. Some of these projects were very large indeed. In Michigan the highway department began work on a $12 million limited access expressway connecting Detroit to the River Rouge defense industry complex and the Ford Willow Run bomber plant.
This bridge on U.S. Route 30 in Pennsylvania could carry only infrequent loads such as the 152,000-pound tank transporter and tank.
After the official entry of the United States into the war in December 1941, packs of German submarines began preying on the coastal sealanes, and by May 1942, they were sinking oil tankers at such a rate as to cause acute fuel shortages in the east. The Office of Defense Transportation diverted railroad tank cars normally used to serve inland States to East Coast destinations, hoping that the trucking industry would fill the transportation gap. However, this plan ran into a stubborn obstacle—the size and weight laws of the States.
For years organizations such as the National Highway Users Conference, the trucking associations, and the automobile manufacturers had been trying to get the States to enact uniform size and weight laws so that trucks could pass readily across State lines. Before World War I there had been bills in Congress proposing national registration of vehicles and Federal size and weight laws, but in the end the Government left this field of regulation to the States. The result was diversity, not to say chaos. In 1941 five States still limited wheel loads according to the width of tire—a holdover from the days of solid rubber tires, which had long since disappeared from the highways. Texas and Louisiana imposed the absurd limit of 7,000 pounds on “payloads.” In Kentucky the gross load limit of a four-wheel vehicle on pneumatic tires was 18,000 pounds and in six other States, it was 20,000 pounds. At the same time, other States permitted gross loads as high as 36,000 pounds on four wheels. In the neighboring States of North and South Dakota the difference in permissible gross loading was 12,000 pounds. The permissible gross load on one axle—a more significant measure of stresses imposed on roads—varied from 12,000 pounds in Alabama and Mississippi to 22,400 pounds in Rhode Island and New York, and even 24,640 pounds in the District of Columbia.[1]
In January 1942 a bill was introduced in Congress giving the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to set uniform truck weights and sizes as a war measure.[2] Thereafter, a number of States raised their load limits. The PEA and AASHO drew up a provisional Uniform Code of Weights, Heights and Lengths of Motor Vehicles which permitted axle loads of 18,000 pounds and gross loads on four wheels of 30,000 pounds, and up to 40,000 pounds on trucks of three or more axles. This code was put into effect in all States in May 1942, in some by the legislature and in others by proclamation of the Governor, under the auspices of the Council of State Governments.
Despite the liberal limits, widespread violations of the code began almost immediately. When some States began enforcing the new limit, the truckers appealed to the legislature or the governors or even congressmen to suspend the penalties for overloading. Appeals to the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) to stop overloading at the source fell on deaf ears. The controversy came to a head in Colorado when Charles D. Vail, who was State Highway Engineer and also head of the State Patrol began cracking down on the overloaders, most of whom were petroleum haulers. He had two reasons for this. One was to enforce the law and prevent wholesale damage to the State’s highways. The other was fear that if the
