Heavier Trucks Take Toll on Aging Roads

It's too bad that the overpaid headline writer couldn't make the noun and the verb agree.

Then don't build oversized cars and trucks! Gah...

I couldn't get past the first paragraph. I tend to get upset when Americans are tagged as the fat and lazy ones.
So, let me clear my throat:

Nearly two thirds of men and over half of women in England are now overweight or obese.
Overweight & Obesity - Britain

In fact, when it comes fat men in Europe, Germany takes the cake...and eats it too: No other nation in Europe has more fat and obese men as a percentage of the population. German women aren't much better: Only Great Britain has more obese women as a percentage of its population.
Davids Medienkritik: Who's Fat? German Hypocrisy by the Kilo

The Australian Bureau of Statistics report into national social trends said 54 per cent of adults were overweight based on 2004-05 figures, up from 45 per cent in 1995.
DNA - Health Line - Most Aussies now classified as obese or overweight - Daily News & Analysis

The Obesity Epidemic in Canada(PRB 05-11E)

Fifty-one percent of the population here is overweight or obese, compared with the national average of 42 percent, according to the most recent national figures in 2003.
France Battles a Problem That Grows and Grows: Fat - New York Times

Ok now that thats out of the way I need to clean these wings off my plate; my triple bacon bleu cheese 12 pound hamburgers coming. They better have doubled the fries this time. The last time I counted it was only 7/8ths more and not double. WHERES THE BLOODY MAYO?!!!!!!

Gimme a bucket....I'm full.

theres lots of clever well educated people here comenting on lots of issues. As for myself well i'm just a Northern Irish country boy but it seems to me that no bridge in any developed country should fall down. Having been in (and drove large trucks on the roads of) germany, Britain, U.S.A. and lots of other places I can tell you that Ireland has the worse roads, the heaviest loads and the least law inforcement but the bridges stay up. Someone has to be responsible for road safety and they should be held to account

P.S. Obesity knows no national boundaries.

The warehouses that used to fill up are now driving down the road next to you

The increase in truck weight corresponds with American industry adopting Just In Time manufacturing. This is the process where a company can keep their inventory low by having the parts they need delivered when needed and not on the books as inventory. In the end this means more parts of everything in trucks moving to the factory more often.

I know that stretch of road in Newton, MA... it gives me nightmares.

When Eisenhower commissioned the construction of the Interstate system, the engineers that designed it never intended the roads to last forever. Personally, I think we need drastic action, because our infrastructure is simply inadequate for the 21st century. We will always need highways, but they need to be complemented by some sort of train system to move people and freight across this country, because a single bad accident can shut down an entire city for a day.

Some guys liked big trucks when they were little....and little trucks when they got big.