Earlier this month, the N.C. Senate quickly agreed to overrule state engineers and allow heavy trucks carrying construction materials to rumble over country and neighborhood roads not built to handle the load. The N.C. Home Builders Association is pushing the legislation, which would allow its members' trucks to drive fully loaded on the fragile roads -- and avoid paying for the damage. Sen. Clark Jenkins, the bill's sponsor, says the General Assembly should approve the legislation as a matter of fairness.

That's because legislators have already granted similar breaks to trucks that haul garbage, seafood, logs, sludge, Christmas trees, crops and other materials.

Some of the breaks date to the 1980s or before. But during the past 12 years, state lawmakers voted 10 times for bills that benefit trucking interests at the public expense. The actions include:

* Giving trucks hauling wood chips, agricultural products and construction aggregates approval to travel on state primary and secondary roads with total weights higher than the 80,000 pounds allowed on interstates. Weights on interstates are controlled by Congress.

* Cutting fines for some overweight trucks in half. Also, legislators have not increased overweight penalties since 1981. That means, after inflation, overweight truck fines are now 25 percent to 50 percent of what they were in the early 1980s.

* Allowing some fully loaded trucks to travel on neighborhood streets and back roads that highway engineers say aren't strong enough to take the pounding.

Legislators also transferred the officers responsible for enforcement of truck weight laws to the Highway Patrol, but without clear directions on what they wanted done and without the money to pay for it. Since the transfer in December 2002, the number of trucks caught with overweight loads has declined sharply, even as truck traffic rises.

Jenkins, a Tarboro Democrat and former member of the state Board of Transportation, says the past votes are influencing current action.

"I don't see how you tell a contractor that he doesn't have the same right that a forest product guy does, or an ag products guy does, if his business is to deliver to that site," Jenkins said in an interview.

The clout of the groups that have gotten their way with truck weights doesn't necessarily come from providing legislators with campaign cash. Except for the N.C. Home Builders Association, which has its bill pending, none of the organizations that have won exemptions have given large amounts of money. The home builders gave $230,938 during the last two years, an average of about $1,350 for every member of the House and Senate.

The weight bills passed by overwhelming margins, in part because there doesn't appear to have been any organized opposition. No group is regularly advocating limits on truck weights.

Rep. Paul Luebke, a Democrat from Durham, voted against some of the weight bills. He said in an interview that they harmed the roads and gave unfair advantage to special interests.

"I thought ... someone would have to pay for the long-term damage, and that someone would be the people of North Carolina," Luebke said.

Up against statistics

Jenkins, an agribusinessman who is a chairman of the Joint Legislative Transportation Oversight Committee, knows better than most legislators that road damage inflicted by overweight trucks rises exponentially with weight. If truck weight increases by 10 percent, for example, the damage to the road increases by 33 percent.

Truck weight is regulated because the larger, heavier vehicles do so much more damage than cars. One truck loaded to the interstate limit of 80,000 pounds puts as much stress on a highway as 5,000 cars, according to Judith Corley-Lay, an expert on pavement management at the state Division of Highways.

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