How much damage do you think a car is going to do to a highway that was
built to support trucks?

Actually for ALL practical purposes....heavy trucks DO ALL the damage to a
properly engineered roadway....

The same is true for heavy aircraft vs little light ones on runways...I know
because I worked in a runway/pavement engineering group for a few years....

Another interesting tidbid is the damage done is VERY non-linear.....

A road/runway can take millions and millions of load cycles at say 90 percent
of its design load, virtually an infinite number at say 50 percent or less, and
somelike only a few hundred at 100 percent...and only a few at 105 percent....

So, truckers can bitch all they want about paying all those "taxes" but I
guarantee you they do ALL the damage as well...(same goes for heavy
airplanes)...

And this brings up a few more points....if cheap/stupid politicians would just
make the damn roads a smidgen thicker (and costing a smidgen more) the roads
would last so long the'd generally need no repairs until it was time to tear
them up because they had become outdated and need to be redesigned...

And legal Folks need to be REALLY tough (as in cut your balls off and take the
truck away) for overloaded trucks...because it only takes a few or even one to
exceed the load limit of a road and once that road is "broken", further road
cycles at MUCH less than the design limit will rapidly and continously cause
further degradation...

take care

Blll