If you're local to or have ever visited Vermont, you may have heard of an extremely pretty stretch of curvy, tight road that's officially called Scenic VT Route 108 by the Vermont Agency of Transportation. Or, if that doesn't sound familiar, you might know it by its more common name: Smugglers Notch.
Tractor-trailers and trucks, quite simply, cannot fit through the tight pass here. It's too curvy, too tight, and simply not built for such large vehicles. And yet, despite the many signs (in both English and French), the fines, the statistics, the local terminology (VAT calls it a "stuckage" every time a truck gets stuck, because it's a thing that happens multiple times each season), people try it anyway.
Some blame it on faulty GPS programs routing folks through; others suggest that some drivers take it as a skills challenge, rather than recognizing it as a proper physical limitation for vehicles of a certain size. It's been a problem for years, and you can find news articles, Reddit threads, and more, all basically amounting to "yep, some out-of-state dumb-dumb got their truck stuck again, and this time it took 3-plus hours to get them unstuck."
It's been a problem for a long time; well over the past decade, at the very least. The road is impassable in the winter, to the point where it's actually only reliably open to traffic from approximately May through October each year. When the leaves turn in particular, it's incredibly scenic, but it's also very narrow. It attracts many visitors from out of state; many come in cars, maybe get out and hike, and also find it a very pleasant motorcycle route.
As you can imagine, there are a whole lot of people whose days are negatively impacted when a truck gets stuck in Smugglers Notch. VAT and local authorities have tried any number of tactics to dissuade trucks from trying it; everything from increased signage warning trucks against this road to soft chicanes over the past couple of seasons. And still, at least a handful of trucks (and some buses) still try it every year, without fail.
That's why, on June 16, 2026, Vermont governor Phil Scott just signed a new bill that passed through the state legislature, making it a law that goes into effect on July 1, 2026. Fines for employers of truck operators who try to go through Smugglers Notch is about to go from $1,000 up to $10,000.
That amount, incidentally, will be levied regardless of whether said truck gets stuck in the Notch. If the truck also proceeds to get stuck, the fine for that offense is rising from a mere $2,000 up to $20,000. No, that isn't a typo; it's really twenty thousand dollars.
For any employers of truck operators who violate this law twice or more within a three-year period, this penalty will double. In other words, in a worst-case scenario, where some dingus gets their truck stuck twice within the next three years, they could end up shelling out over $60K in potential fines.
Or they could, you know, choose a different route and avoid the potential problem entirely. It's all about choices, and making better ones when possible. Also, not completely ignoring warning signs on the road.
