Large Truck Crashes are Already Deadly and Costly
Truck Weight Increases Are More Dangerous and More Damaging to Roadways
Oppose Freight Restriction Elimination for Safer Hauling (FRESH) Act of 2025
The FRESH Act
- The FRESH Act undermines truck safety by allowing trucks over the federal truck weight limit (80,000 lbs.) to operate on interstate highways within a state when carrying certain products.
- The weight limits would vary depending on state truck weight limits.
- The bill would endanger road users, accelerate roadway damage, create a patchwork of truck weight exceptions, hamper enforcement and undermine the federal truck weight limit.
- This approach would set the stage to push for an increase in the federal truck weight limit based on the need to harmonize the state truck weight allowances.
Truck Safety Needs Improvement, Not Weakening
- In 2023, 5,439 people were killed and 41,733 were injured in large truck crashes.
- Since 2009, the number of fatalities in large truck crashes has increased by 76 percent. In that same timespan, the number of people injured in crashes involving large trucks rose by 117 percent.
- In fatal two-vehicle crashes between a large truck and a passenger motor vehicle, 96 percent of the fatalities were occupants of the passenger vehicle.
- Large truck and bus crashes impose an annual estimated cost to society of $128 billion in 2021, the latest year for which data is available. When adjusted for inflation, the cost is estimated to be $155 billion.
Bigger, Heavier Trucks are Deadlier in Crashes and More Damaging - Increasing truck size and weight will exacerbate safety and infrastructure problems, negate potential benefits from investments in roads and bridges, and divert rail traffic from privately owned freight railroads to our already overburdened public highways.
- Overweight trucks disproportionately damage our badly deteriorated roads and bridges. An 18,000-pound truck axle does over 3,000 times more damage to pavement than a typical passenger vehicle axle.
- In the American Society of Civil Engineer (ASCE) 2025 Report Card, roads received a grade of “D+,” with 39 percent in poor or mediocre condition. Bridges received a “C,” with about a third of the nation’s bridge inventory (221,791 spans) in need of repair replacement. In addition, approximately 45 percent of bridges have exceeded their planned design lives of 50 years.
- Increasing the weight of a heavy truck by only 10 percent increases bridge damage by 33 percent.
- The FHWA estimated that the investment backlog for bridges, to address all cost-beneficial bridge needs, is $191.3 billion. The U.S. would need to increase annual funding for bridges by 41 percent over current spending levels to eliminate the bridge backlog by 2038.
- Research and Experience Show Bigger, Heavier Trucks Will Not Result in Fewer Trucks
- Increases in truck size and weights over more than 40 years have never resulted in fewer heavier trucks on the roads. Since 1982, when Congress last increased the gross vehicle weight limit, truck registrations have more than doubled.
- The 2015 U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) Comprehensive Truck Size and Weight Study addressed this meritless assertion and found that any potential mileage efficiencies from the use of heavier trucks would be offset in just one year.
The Public Consistently Opposes Allowing Bigger, Heavier Trucks - In a December 2024 CARAVAN Survey, more than half of respondents were “very” or “extremely” concerned about sharing the road with large and heavy trucks. In that same survey, 69 percent of respondents were “very” or “extremely” concerned about sharing the road with driverless trucks.
- A January 2018 public opinion poll conducted by Harper Polling found that seven out of 10 respondents oppose longer and heavier trucks.
- A May 2013 public opinion poll by Lake Research Partners found that 68 percent of Americans oppose heavier trucks and 88 percent of Americans do not want to pay higher taxes for the damage caused by heavier trucks
Reject More Roadway Dangers, Damages and Debt
Say No to the FRESH Act of 2025
Read the full alert here.