The Hindu Business Line : Overloaded trucks

AT a seminar last week on the problems of the transport sector in Kerala, organised by the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC), Mr R. Balakrishna Pillai, State Minister for Transport, announced that the Centre has instructed the State Government to ensure that trucks operating in Kerala are not overloaded.

The Union Government has also indicated that Central funds for road safety initiatives in Kerala will be stopped if this directive is not implemented properly, he added. That should be reason enough for the State Government to sit up and take note of the ever-increasing number of trucks overloaded with hay from Tamil Nadu, construction materials from Karnataka, wooden logs and iron roads from sundry sources, all protruding out of the trucks at dangerous angles.

Overloading is a characteristic problem in most developing countries, as truckers seek to maximise returns.

Overloading has become such a major problem in the entire southern African region that it has become a hotly debated subject, with truck operators, authorities and the public all accusing one another of not being realistic about the demands on road usage.

For the purpose of finding a common definition of overloading, both Namibian and South African law define overloading as any weight "exceeding 56,000 kg gross combination mass of a seven-axle combination."

Operators are, however, allowed to exceed this weight with 5 per cent as a "tolerance allowable on gross", well known in South Africa as the "grey" area.

In the Philippines, trucks and trailers with dual-wheel axle loads exceeding 13,500 kg or with vehicle loads exceeding 150 per cent of their maximum allowable gross vehicle weight are considered "dangerously overloaded" and will not be allowed to use the expressway.

Chinese authorities say overloaded vehicles have been a major cause of road damage. The annual maintenance cost for highways damaged by overloaded vehicles is about 30 billion yuan throughout the nation and 160 million in Shenzen.

Research in South Africa and the US has shown that damage to roads increases exponentially as axle loads increase. For example, an axle carrying double the legal load may cause from 4 to 60 times more damage than one carrying a legal load.

Multi-axle trucks are very common these days in Kerala, which has one of the highest proportion of goods vehicles - 8.53 per cent, compared to the all-India average of 6.07 per cent. However, there are very few similar scientific studies on overloading that have been undertaken in the State.

Being a consumer State with a limited role for rail transportation, the goods movement in the State is mainly through trucks. Not surprisingly, statistics show that goods vehicles are involved in about 11 per cent of accidents in the State.

At the seminar, the Minister pointed out the biggest problem facing Kerala's transport sector - the poor quality of the State's roads. Kerala needs roads and bridges that can cope with modern vehicles and also with the sharp increase in the number of vehicles in the State, Mr Pillai added.

Evidently, the State government has more than enough to start with, if it is serious about the business of overloaded trucks.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

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