New weigh stations give Oklahoma roads a chance

Here's hoping it's the first of many successes for the facility that opened last week on Interstate 35 in Kay County, just inside the line from Kansas. Fewer overweight rigs means a longer life for our highways, and they can certainly use it.

Former Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner Jeff Cloud began pushing for the new weigh stations, called ports of entry (POE), more than five years ago. In a 2007 op-ed in The Oklahoman, Cloud noted that most of our six aging weigh stations were closed or in such disrepair that they couldn't handle more than a few trucks at a time. As a result, “It is well known that any experienced trucker who wants to break the law and run overload in Oklahoma can do so with relative ease.”