History
The first truck weight limits were enacted by four states in 1913, ranging from 18,000 pounds (8,200 kg) in Maine to 28,000 pounds (13,000 kg) in Massachusetts. These laws were passed to protect earth and gravel-surfaced roads from damage caused by the steel and solid rubber wheels of early heavy trucks. By 1933, all states had some form of truck weight regulation. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 instituted the first federal truck weight regulation (set at 73,280 pounds / 33,240 kilograms) and authorized the construction of the Interstate Highway System.
In the late 1950s, the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) conducted a series of extensive field tests of roads and bridges to determine how traffic contributed to the deterioration of pavement materials. In 1964, the AASHTO recommended to Congress that a bridge formula table be used instead of a single gross weight limit for trucks. The Federal-Aid Highway Act Amendments of 1974 established the bridge formula as law, along with the gross weight limit of 80,000 pounds (36,000 kg), still in use as of 2009.
Read more about this topic: Federal Bridge Gross Weight Formula
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“History, as an entirety, could only exist in the eyes of an observer outside it and outside the world. History only exists, in the final analysis, for God.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember. All other history defeats itself.
In Beverly Hills ... they don’t throw their garbage away. They make it into television shows.
Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will.”
—Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)