HERO's Mission is …

• Improve local ordinances and regulations pertaining to transportation to enhance safety through uniformity, benefits to the economy, air quality, and the relief of traffic congestion.

History:

The Heavy Equipment Rental Organization (HERO) for the past 6 years has been working on streamlining trucking regulations, particularly the permit process for oversized loads going to and from construction projects. We have been conducting educational meetings throughout Southern California, educating city officials as to how changes in transportation regulations affect our Industry.

Our industry has been forced to operate based on outdated rules, rules that were developed over the past 60 years. On April 24th, 1997, the HERO's Transportation Committee was formed representing the construction industry to improve this regulatory environment.

With the assistance of Rick Hill, then Southern Region Assistant Manager of Caltrans, we initiated meetings with local cities and their counties. A key issue was getting all the cities into a single room. This was a similar problem Caltrans had been facing as well.
We formed a select group from the industry, rental companies, lowbed companies and contractors. Additionally, we invited CHP Commercial Enforcement, Sacramento, which attended every meeting. We wanted to make sure that if any city or county representative had a question, there was a person with authority to answer it.
We recently played a major role in working with Los Angeles, the second largest city in the nation and their 1940's transportation ordinances.

City officials often do not realize the impact of these regulations to the industry and the economy. We have also included in our endeavor efforts to prevent cities from regulating legal trucks. Some cities pass ordinances that delegate when and where we can travel through their cities.

These local jurisdictions do not have the authority to regulate legal trucking. The Supreme Court ruling, The City of Columbus v. Ours Garage, clearly states that they have the Authority to regulate commerce for safety reasons only, not noise, or wear and tear on their streets. According to the Court, the cities cannot affect the route, price, or service of intrastate or interstate commerce, except with respect to safety. We are now working with these cities and counties statewide to educate them as to what the Supreme Court decision said along with the F4A or federal law concerning this subject.

HERO's Goals:

• Continue to raise industry awareness to all state-wide associations
  
• Continue to work with the cities on uniform truck routing for continuous standard uninterrupted travel through numerous adjoining jurisdictions
  
• Proactively seek to resolve state and local jurisdiction and regulatory issues
  
• Continue quarterly meetings with city and county officials on the education of the transportation industry and the maintaining of policy decisions