The county may finally put some teeth behind its “no trucks” signs.
During Monday’s board of supervisors meeting, Road Manager Mike Aldridge said he has been hearing complaints from residents about trucks carrying heavy loads tearing up roads throughout the county.
Aldridge has put up signs to try to prevent truck traffic, but he said both he and the sheriff’s office cannot enforce them since the county does not have an ordinance about truck traffic or weight limits on its roads.
“Why are we spending $100 to put up a no truck sign if there’s no bite to it?” Aldridge asked. “I can’t stop them going. The sheriff can’t write a ticket for it.”
Roads getting damaged, Aldridge said, include Steens Road, Steens Vernon Road, Gunshoot Road, Pleasant Hill Road and, worst of all, Lehmberg Road. Roads in Artesia are also being damaged by trucks cutting through the town.
Besides being unenforceable, Aldridge said, the signs he has put up are expensive, as they keep getting damaged and having to be replaced.
One sign on Lehmberg Road, he said, has been replaced eight to 10 times in the past year, and that particular sign costs about $400 to replace each time with all of the different information posted on it.
Besides the investment in the signs, Board President Trip Hairston told The Dispatch Tuesday that the damage to these roads is also pricey due to repaving costs. The county invests $3 million annually in paving, he said, and asphalt can cost anywhere between $155 to $165 a ton.
“It’s a really expensive line item on the budget, and we don’t want to see that torn up or ruined in any way immediately, of course,” Hairston said. “… You are going to have some heavy haul issues, but normal wear and tear is what we expect on those roads, and if we take care of them, they will last a long time. That’s protecting the taxpayer money.”
Aldridge said he manages most truck traffic issues by talking directly to drivers and the companies they work for to give them the best routes for moving heavy loads. One such route is Gilmer-Wilburn Road, which takes truckers around Artesia instead of through the town’s streets.
But he can’t help with loads that he doesn’t know about.
“Probably 75% of the loggers that log in Lowndes County call me before they move into a piece of property, and I give them the truck route, the route they need to run,” Aldridge said. “… Seventy-five percent of them are great. But you’ve got that 25% that want to slip in here and never let you know.”
Board Attorney Tim Hudson said while Aldridge doesn’t have the authority to enforce the no truck zones, the supervisors could create an ordinance including a fine for loads starting and ending on a county road, as long as that ordinance would not impede trucks from reaching the businesses on the selected roads.
District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said Hudson and Aldridge should research the issue and draft an ordinance on truck traffic on county roads for the board’s approval. Brooks also suggested researching city ordinances on road weight limits, though the county sheriff’s office could not enforce those ordinances.
Along with the new ordinance, Aldridge suggested putting up a sign on Highway 45 indicating the Gilmer-Wilburn Road truck route around Artesia, though putting up this sign would require approval from the Mississippi Department of Transportation.
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