Many new laws are being put into place to combat shipping costs and rising inflation in the US. A new law aiming to address such concerns in Louisiana is now coming to fruition. Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has signed a new bill allowing drayage trucks hauling freight to and from shipping ports in Louisiana to pull a tandem of 20-foot containers.
The purpose of this is to scale down the number of containers that are currently delayed at facilities across Louisiana. The idea is that using fewer trucks to haul will address the growing labor shortages the trucking industry is currently facing.
State Sen. Gary Smith, who first proposed the bill, cites the panic consumers are facing “Constituents are trying to get products and supplies, and everywhere you turn around the people they are trying to buy them from are waiting on products and supplies, so they can sell them.”
The bill highlights a few rules that truckers must abide by, such as tandem trailers along with their tractors can’t exceed 140,000 pounds per tandem axle spread. Also, two trailers combined cannot exceed 83 feet in length.
Although Louisiana isn’t the first state to allow commercial trucks to haul double trailers, each state regulates its rules differently. The Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development will give out special biannual permits for those securing tandem loads, statewide, due to the interstate highways being regulated federally.
How does the community feel about this new bill?
Some in Louisiana, specifically transportation officials, have concerns about gross and axle weight due to hauling tandem loads.
This new law was put into effect on June 17.