Trucking news and briefs for Friday, March 13, 2020:
ATA requests to have Rhode Island tolls blocked during ongoing lawsuit
The American Trucking Associations this week filed for a preliminary injunction in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island to prohibit the Rhode Island DOT from collecting tolls from truck drivers as part of the ongoing lawsuit against the RhodeWorks trucks-only tolls program.
“As the next step of our ongoing fight against Rhode Island’s unconstitutional truck-only toll scheme, ATA has asked the U.S. District Court to issue a preliminary injunction barring the state from continuing to collect the RhodeWorks tolls,” said Rich Pianka, ATA deputy general counsel. “We are confident that we will prevail on the merits of our challenge, and therefore have asked the court to take this step to stop the ongoing unconstitutional harms these discriminatory tolls are inflicting on the trucking industry every day.”
In the injunction request, ATA says the tolls are unconstitutional by discriminating against interstate commerce and falling “disproportionately on out-of-state and interstate truckers, while sparing in-state users of the tolled facilities.”
Absent an injunction, ATA notes, truckers “will suffer irreparable injury” because of the state’s sovereign immunity that will prevent truckers from recovering any tolls already paid, even if the tolls are ruled unconstitutional by the court.
FMCSA postpones next week’s Truck Safety Summit
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration made the decision Friday to postpone the March 19 Truck Safety Summit due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The agency said it is monitoring the impact of the new coronavirus and will work on setting a new date for the event.
