Journalist: Lina Quinones (TCC)
On the second day of OIL, House Bill OU-511, titled the “Truck and Highway Safety” Act of 2026 was put on the house floor.
This bill will require “the driver of a truck with a gross weight of more than sixteen thousand five hundred (16,500) pounds, a truck tractor, or a combination of a vehicle and trailer or semitrailer” to only drive in the farthest right lanes of a multi-lane highway.
Now while this bill did pass through the house, 32 pro and 31 opp, many still had opinions about it.
One who was for the bill was Rep. Kate Clark from OSU and a two star.
At first she was on the fence about this bill. As of then one of the penalties stated that drivers who failed to comply with this would be penalized with a fine of $1,500.
Clark continues to state that “truck drivers weekly salary is just over $1,500, and taking away a drivers’ entire weekly salary in one fine is too much for people who don’t make enough.”
Clark continues as she fully believes in this bill, but it has to be amended to protect those drivers as well. She thinks that this will continue to save a lot of lives just from.
Clark did not know how the house would vote in the future. But she was positive that this would pass in the house unanimously. She heard from multiple house members that they were in the proponency.
Clark believed that this bill will greatly impact Oklahoma’s roads and drivers. She says that this will help better the flow of traffic within the state. This will only be apparent on multi-lane highways, not two-lanes highways such as in Rural Oklahoma.
She does state that it may also affect drivers in negative ways such as not understanding the new current law.