WASHINGTON, DC – June 24: Copies of the Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 are piled on a staff table during the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit Subcommittee markup of the bill. (Photo by Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images)
CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
“And think carefully about this because if in writing some article that’s negative you effectively dissuade people from using autonomous vehicles, you’re killing people.” As the title of this piece already indicates, the words in quotes are those of Elon Musk.
Here’s hoping Musk’s thinking will be heeded by Congress as the Surface Transportation Bill (aka “The Highway Bill”) works its way through both houses. Though a bill that trucking lobbyists will love, at some point legislators need to ask if what aids the trucking industry is good for drivers, and for that matter the trucking industry itself.
For background, the New York Times recently reported that in 2023, “5,472 people died in crashes involving large trucks.” The easy, emotional response might be that trucks are a menace. That’s because those who die in accidents involving large trucks are generally not the people inside the large trucks. That’s not the argument that will be made here.
Horrifying as one trucking accident death is, let alone thousands, it’s easy to forget that as you read this trucks move “nearly three-quarters of the nation’s goods.” In other words, if you disdain what Michael Gorman described in the Washington Examiner as “the deadliest, most polluting, congestion-causing, and heavily publicly subsidized mode” of moving market goods (trucking), think how unhappy you would be without it.
Which means the aim of this opinion piece isn’t to muzzle trucking, rather it’s a call for a freer market defined by intense competition to move goods around the U.S. Unfortunately, the Highway Bill doesn’t enhance market competition. Instead, it heavily favors trucking to the detriment of other transportation options. Rail looms large here.
In the Bill are plans to allow 91,000-pound trucks onto interstates, more truck parking nationwide, and a clearer path to driverless trucks. The last bit is desirable. See Musk again.
Still, the problem is that what’s good for trucking is apparently not good for rail transportation despite the obvious safety enhancements provided by the latter. While there were once again 5,472 deaths from trucking accidents in 2023, by comparison rail deaths in the same year came in at five.
Based on the wide disparity, logic dictates that as opposed to a Surface Transportation Bill the implied aim of which is to put more trucks on the road, that Congress would at the very least be searching for ways to smooth the path toward more competition for trucking. Except that’s not what’s happening.
Instead, the Bill increases the regulatory burden on the rail industry. And while trains are clearly most conducive to driverless automation since they operate on fixed, closed networks, the Bill mandates a two-person crew for rail transportation.
Beyond all that, let’s not forget what the Highway Bill is ultimately about, which is funding for highways. Here it can be said that while rail provides its own “highways” as it were, trucks that the legislation aims to grow in size are a substantial cost burden for highways the burden of which isn’t shouldered by the trucking industry.
Which is why the Highway Bill in its present incarnation must be restrained. It’s not just that it’s needlessly costly, it’s not just that it suffocates market competition, it’s that it will kill people. That’s not just bad for America, it’s bad for the trucking industry that will rightly be blamed if lobbyists succeed in getting more and bigger trucks on the road not because the markets demand it, but because the trucking industry has better lobbyists than its competitors.