Car Shipping in Utah

Good to know in Utah

The things that actually move a pickup date here.

• The longest run of interstate in the country with nothing on it

  Interstate 70 is the only through route across the middle of Utah, and west of Green River it climbs into the San Rafael Swell — in the Federal Highway Administration's description a large geologic uplift of rugged, scenic terrain in a near-desert climate, and one of the few interstates cut on an entirely new route rather than laid over an existing road. The run from Salina to Green River is about 105 miles with no fuel, no food and no lodging of any kind, long documented as the longest stretch on the whole Interstate system with no services directly along the road, and it is signed that way at the on-ramps. For a carrier it is a planning fact rather than a hazard: the driver fuels and eats before the on-ramp because there is no second chance for a hundred miles, and a breakdown out in the Swell means a long wait for help.

• A canyon road the state closes and fires on

  State Route 210 climbs Little Cottonwood Canyon from the Salt Lake valley to the ski areas at Alta and Snowbird, and UDOT counts 64 avalanche slide paths in that single canyon, with more than half of SR-210 exposed to them — among the most avalanche-threatened roads in North America. When the snow loads up, the agency closes the road to everyone and brings the slides down on purpose, with artillery and remote-fired charges, before letting traffic back on. Short of a closure a strict traction law governs the canyon: once the beacons at the mouth are flashing, every vehicle needs at least 5/32-inch tread, with four-wheel drive on mud-and-snow tires or two-wheel drive on three-peak-snowflake tires, and chains accepted in place of either. A winter delivery to a house up either Cottonwood canyon waits on the gate, not on the driver.

• Emissions testing covers five counties and stops there

  Utah runs its vehicle emissions test county by county, and only the five that make up the Wasatch Front operate one — Salt Lake, Davis, Weber, Utah and Cache — the chain of valleys along I-15 where winter inversions trap exhaust against the mountains. A car kept in any of the state's other twenty-four counties has no emissions test to clear at all. Where it does apply, a vehicle arriving from out of state has to pass before its first set of Utah plates is issued, so a household shipping into Salt Lake City or Ogden picks up an errand that one shipping into Moab or St. George never meets. The garage address settles it, which is why it is worth knowing before the booking rather than at the county counter.

• The cities line up on I-15, and wildfire costs more days than snow

  Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo sit in a row on Interstate 15, with St. George 300 miles south on the same road, so carriers run I-15 all day and a pickup on the Wasatch Front is easy to schedule. The weather is the surprise. For a state that sells itself on snow, NOAA's billion-dollar disaster record for Utah runs to 25 events since 1980, of which 12 were droughts and 10 were wildfires; the handful left is one severe storm, one flood and one freeze, with not a single winter storm on the list. Drought does nothing to a single load, but a wildfire shuts a given highway with little warning and pushes a carrier onto a long detour. The deep-snow danger is real and concentrated in the mountain canyons rather than spread across the valleys, which is why Utah's snow reaches a shipment as a shut canyon road rather than a statewide delay.

Sources: Federal Highway Administration: I-70, the San Rafael Swell and Cove Fort, Interstate 70 in Utah: the Salina to Green River no-services stretch, UDOT Cottonwood Canyons: avalanche information and SR-210 slide paths, UDOT Cottonwood Canyons: traction law requirements, Utah DMV: vehicle inspections and the counties that require emissions testing, Salt Lake County Health: vehicle emissions testing program, NOAA NCEI: billion-dollar disasters, Utah summary