Two and a half years ago, legislators put the patrol in charge of policing overweight trucks, taking the responsibility away from the Division of Motor Vehicles. But the transfer of those duties, along with laws passed by legislators to allow heavier trucks, have turned overweight trucks loose on North Carolina highways, a News & Observer investigation shows.

The cost is borne by taxpayers, who must pay millions of dollars a year for expensive repairs.

Last year, officers caught less than half as many overweight trucks as they ticketed in 2000. Penalties were also down by more than half. About 100 fewer officers prowled the state's back roads to weigh trucks with portable scales or were available to work at the weigh stations on North Carolina's interstates.

A state Department of Transportation study estimates that only 45 percent of the trucks on interstates are being weighed during the week. The stations are usually closed on weekends.

Overweight trucks have not been a priority for the patrol or a concern to state legislators, who have passed 10 laws in 12 years allowing heavier trucks on state-controlled roads.

The state Department of Transportation protested some of the laws but was ineffective. Lyndo Tippett, secretary of transportation for the past four years and a transportation board member for eight years before that, didn't know about new laws allowing heavier trucks on state primary and secondary roads until The N&O asked him about them.

Leaders of DOT and the Highway Patrol are appointed by the governor. Gov. Mike Easley's administration advocated transferring weight enforcement duties to the patrol after the DMV became entangled in allegations of ticket fixing and other improprieties.

The patrol acknowledges that it hasn't gotten the job done.

"Data shows that portable weight enforcement activities and ... inspections are at an all time low," Maj. M.R. Johnson told Highway Patrol troop commanders in a memo late last year.

The patrol's 37-page "Strategic Plan" for 2005 has a lot to say about protecting lives and property by reducing collisions but only one paragraph about protecting highways from damage caused by overweight trucks.

An internal Highway Patrol memo, written earlier this year after The N&O started asking about the weight enforcement numbers, listed 16 reasons for the drop in productivity, including a shift in focus of officers to highway safety.

Getting overweight trucks off the roads is critical because as a truck's weight increases, the damage it does increases exponentially. A 10 percent increase in weight, for example, translates to a 33 percent increase in damage, experts say. And even if a truck is legally loaded -- with a gross weight of 80,000 pounds -- pavement design experts say it does at least as much damage to a highway as 5,000 cars.

Most road damage comes from two sources: weather and trucks. Experts can't say precisely how much trucks, legal and overweight, cost the state in highway damage; estimates run as high as $100 million a year. The state will spend $2.2 billion this year on highways, including $615 million on highway maintenance. The top highway official says he needs $1 billion for maintenance.

Who benefits?

On major roads, damage caused by overweight trucks -- or by more legally loaded trucks than the road was designed for -- can take years to show up, like health problems in people who smoke.

But on a country lane such as New Hill-Olive Chapel Road, a shortcut between U.S. 64 and U.S. 1 in southwest Wake County, there's no waiting period. On that two-lane road there's a patch, or a pothole needing a patch, an average of every 40 yards for more than four miles. Roads like it are scattered across the state.

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