City Council considers doubling fines for truck route violations

A city in Kansas is considering doubling fines for any semi truck that strays from truck routes. 

The Gardner, Kansas City Council is reviewing an ordinance that would amend city code and double the fines for any trucker found straying from designated truck routes. 

Currently, iff caught driving on a non truck route, the truck driver is cited, responsible for paying the $100 fine, and showing up to court, but residents suggest that fining the trucking company $200 may be a more effective option. 

“A $200 fine to a basic truck driver, that comes out of his back pocket. It’s probably not out of the company. They need to go after the companies and they need to be notified ‘hey this is not a route you tell your drivers to take’,” said Kenneth Huggins, owner of Cars, Trucks, Etc. Repair Shop on Main Street in Gardner, to Fox 4 News.

Huggins also doesn’t blame the truckers themselves, and points out that a lack of signage about designated truck routes throughout the city may leave out-of-towner truckers confused or unaware. 

“The state never put up signs for where the truckers needed to go. They’re going to rely on their GPS, because these people come in from strange parts of the country and are not familiar with our [part of the] country here, our city,” Huggins.

“We don’t want a heavy truck to get into a neighborhood where streets are small and you have cars parked; You have pedestrians out, you have kids out playing. That’s just unsafe and that’s what we are trying to avoid by making sure we have enforcement out there to mitigate that as much as we can,” said  Gardner Police Chief James Belcher. 

Current truck routes in Gardner include:  

• Main Street (U.S. 56 Highway)
• Old U.S. 56 Highway
• 175th Street from I-35 to the east City limits
• Center Street/South Gardner Road from I-35 to Main Street
• Moonlight Road north of Main Street

The results of the city council vote should be released some time this week.