It’s a scene that plays out almost every day on SR-36: A double-trailer truck laden with tons of gravel comes barreling down the roadway towards a distant yellow light. A driver going the opposite direction prepares to make a left turn. If the driver waits for the truck, he’ll likely end up stuck in an intersection on the red light. If he instead bets on the truck pulling up short — as most other vehicles would — he may pay with his life.

Large trucks of any type always pose some challenges for drivers of smaller vehicles, but the problems associated specifically with gravel trucks on SR-36 have compounded exponentially in recent years — and corresponded with a time when more vehicles are traveling faster on the state highway between Tooele and Lake Point than ever before.

Wide skid marks criss-crossing many of the intersections along SR-36 bear testament to the fact that massive trucks further weighted with gravel don’t stop easily. That wouldn’t be such a problem if the trucks’ drivers moved at more cautious speeds. Unfortunately, however, time is money for many of these drivers, incentivizing them to blaze down the road like juggernauts. That doesn’t only create danger for left-turning drivers, but also for drivers who do pull up short at yellow lights with a gravel truck behind them.

There are other problems with the trucks too. For one thing, many of their loads are uncovered, meaning gravel still blows out and routinely chips motorists’ windshields. For another, they are difficult to maneuver around and see around — which wouldn’t be such a problem if there weren’t so many of them on the roads. And finally, they present a constant menace to pedestrians looking to get from one side of Tooele’s Main Street to the other, effectively dividing downtown into two separate halves and hurting merchants in the process.

Local law enforcement reports that gravel trucks are not involved in more accidents than other vehicles nor do they earn more speeding citations than other vehicles. But that data falls far short of telling the real story of how the trucks make SR-36 more dangerous for everyone on the road. Anecdotally, almost every commuter has at least one harrowing experience to share about the time a gravel truck nearly caused an accident right in front of them.

The county’s gravel industry has come under increasing criticism recently for everything from its attempts to dismantle the Stockton Bar to its destructive impact on Mormon Trail Road to the widespread sentiment that the industry’s local economic benefit is relatively minuscule compared to the value of the natural resources being exported out. We think the industry could go some way toward proving it wants to be a responsible part of the community by policing its trucking activities better. If it doesn’t do that, however, it’s time for government to step in to keep the valley’s busiest stretch of highway safe for all.