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John Forrester, a Caldwell independent trucker, calls it “threading the needle.”

As he is driving his refrigerated truck down a rural section of Idaho’s freeways doing the maximum 65 miles per hour for trucks, one car passes him and stays in the passing lane slightly ahead of him. A second car, eager to go 75, decides to pass, comes up close to the first car, then darts back into the right lane immediately in front of his truck.

“It gets pretty hairy,” Forrester said.

Threading the needle and other risky interactions between cars and trucks could be eased if Idaho allowed trucks to match cars’ 75 mph limit, according to Forrester and other backers of a bill to raise the limit.

The Senate Transportation Committee will hold a hearing Thursday on the bill from its chairman, Sen. Jim Hammond, R-Coeur d’Alene. A single limit would keep traffic moving at the same speed and reduce some of the need for passing, Hammond said.

His proposal, Senate Bill 1229, is backed by the Idaho State Police, which says it would make for safer highways.

Idaho has 609 miles of interstate highways, and 521 have speed limits of 75 mph for cars and 65 for trucks.

If it passes the Senate, Hammond’s bill is likely to be welcomed in the House Transportation Committee, where Chairman Joe Palmer, R-Meridian, also supports uniform speeds. “To me, the more we close the gap the better we are,” Palmer said.

But some truckers aren’t convinced.

“It’s the worst thing you could do,” said Dave Suitter, who runs Dave Suitter Trucking with eight trucks that go across 13 Western states out of Jerome.

Trucks should not be going that fast on Idaho interstates, particularly in winter, Suitter said. He said truck tires are barely rated for going 75, and going that fast consumes a lot of diesel fuel. “To be in business in this day and age, you have to be as efficient as possible,” he said.

Diesel in Idaho averages $3.89 a gallon, but that could rise to $5 a gallon later this year, when fuel prices are expected to soar, said Dave Carlson, governmental affairs director for AAA Idaho, the auto club.

The Idaho Trucking Association, which represents 225 trucking businesses, isn’t taking a position on the bill. Most companies have devices that prevent drivers from exceeding 65 mph for fuel efficiency, said Kathy Fowers, the association’s president and CEO.

Even if the bill passes, “they are not going to increase that to 75,” Fowers said. “I would have a few members that would like to see it raised. The majority don’t care.”

Ten states have 75 mph speed limits on rural interstates for both cars and trucks. Six are in the West. One of them, Utah, says the uniform speed creates an expectation in drivers’ minds about the speed of other vehicles. “You’re not getting surprises,” said Robert Hull, traffic and safety director for the Utah Department of Transportation.

Differentiated speeds often leave drivers to gauge the speed of other vehicles, which they may do poorly, he said. That can lead to a fast-moving car coming up behind a slower-moving truck and ramming it.

National studies of truck speeds shed little light on whether raising the limits makes roads safer, according to a summary from the Idaho Transportation Department. Some studies suggest uniform speeds reduce problems between cars and trucks. Others say it doesn’t.

Data gathered by the Idaho State Police from states that have uniform limits show that states have not experienced increases in fatality rates or serious crashes involving commercial vehicles, said Lt. Jim Eavenson.

The lack of conclusive studies is an indication that the truck-speed issue is complex, Carlson said. AAA Idaho, whose members opposed an increase in 2006, will ask lawmakers to take a more in-depth look before passing a law.

“If we don’t do this right, it flies in the face of sanity or logic,” he said.

Source: Idaho Statesman