I’ll try to make this short because I know not everyone is into the whole truck safety thing.  But some of you have wondered how you can help move safety issues along.  Here’s an easy way.  There is now a House and a Senate version of the SHIPA bill.  SHIPA stands for Safe Highways and Infrastructure Preservation Act.  It seeks to freeze the size and weight of commercial trucks where they are now as they travel on the national highway system.  Size and weight are already frozen on the interstate system, but larger trucks are allowed on many highways.  SHIPA would eliminate that loophole.

You can go to your Senator’s and Representative’s websites and ask them to cosponsor these bills.  The more bi-partisan support we can get the better the chance that we can get the bill to pass.   The Senate version of the bill is S. 876,  and the House version is H. R. 1574.

The House version already has over 30 cosponsors so your person might have already signed on.  Here’s how you can tell.  Go to this site.  Click the bill # option under the search summary.  Then type in H.R. 1574. (you can also type hr 1574)  That will take you to a spot where you can click on “cosponsors” and see if your Representative has already signed on.  If not, email them and ask them to cosponsor.

The Senate version doesn’t have any cosponsors yet.  It was just introduced at the beginning of May, by a Democratic Senator.  It would be great to get more Senators to cosponsor.

If you’ve never written to a Member of Congress before, don’t be intimidated.  You are important and they want to hear from you.  You can find their websites by just googling their name, or you can go to this site to find out who your Representative is and this site to find out who your Senators are.

Each one has a comment section on their individual websites.  You have to fill out your name and address so they know you are actually one of their own, then there’s a big box where you can type.  We don’t want all the messages to sound canned, so just ask them to cosponsor either H.R. 1574 (if they are a House of Representative Member) or S. 876 (if they are a Senator).  Tell them that bigger, heavier trucks are more dangerous, will kill more people and cause more damage to our bridges and roads.  Tell them you want their support to make our roads safer.

That’s all you have to do…ask them to help us make the roads safer.  Try it, it’s easy and it will empower you.

And the victims and their families will thank you.