Local law enforcement increasingly stopping, inspecting commercial trucks

By Terry Evans

tevans@star-telegram.com

An accident was waiting to happen on Airport Freeway. A single chain was holding a Bobcat front loader to a flatbed trailer. On the trailer, scattered about, unsecured and ready to fly off, were a generator, power and hand tools and dozens of two-by-fours with jutting nails, as well as other debris.

Cpl. Scott Peterson of the Euless Police Department pulled the driver over Wednesday, then discovered worse. Brake lights were broken or missing on the 16-year-old dump truck hauling the trailer. None of the lights on the trailer itself worked, and a system to engage the trailer's brakes should it disengage from the truck was inoperative.

And the driver had no commercial license or any other kind of license.

Fed up with unsafe and overweight trucks, a growing number of police and sheriff's departments statewide are stopping and inspecting commercial vehicles rather than relying only on the Texas Department of Public Safety to enforce the laws.

"We've found 80,000-pound trucks with eight of 10 brakes not working," Peterson said. "These are typical 18-wheelers, and this is not uncommon."

Some big rig owners and operators say they're victims of extortion.

"Probably the best way to surmise it is, generally, when local jurisdictions, the Barney Fifes, jump into enforcement, it's about enhancing the local city coffers," said Joe Rajkovacz, director of regulatory affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. "It has nothing to do with highway safety."

But cities say DPS lacks the manpower to identify all the dangerous commercial vehicles and protect other motorists who must share the road with them.

DPS periodically inspects commercial trucks at weigh stations along major highways, including two stations in Dallas County and one in Tarrant County. Its troopers also patrol rural highways as part of the commercial vehicle enforcement program.

With hundreds of thousands of commercial vehicles registered to operate in Texas, though, and increased traffic from long-haul Mexican commercial vehicles, the task can be daunting. DPS has 427 commissioned officers dedicated to commercial vehicle enforcement and 333 Highway Patrol Level II troopers trained to augment their efforts.

What's more, cities say, some truckers avoid the inspection stations and highways where they fear DPS inspectors lurk, detouring into cities to skirt enforcement.

So cities have assigned police officers to undergo a year or more of training to be certified to conduct inspections and enforce state and federal laws on commercial vehicles weighing more than 26,000 pounds.

Lewisville began its program in January 2008, a year after a wreck on Interstate 35E that involved a tractor-trailer rig whose brakes failed, Police Chief Russ Kerbow said.

Though no one died, the injuries, expenses and traffic tie-ups from the accident prompted the city to take action, he said.

"Since this January, we've inspected 213 trucks resulting in 248 citations," he said. "We put 133 of those trucks out of service and wrote more than 1,300 warnings for minor violations."

Commercial vehicle enforcement programs, he said, are "never about the money. The fines offset some of the expense. The paramount issue for us is public safety."

'They don't care'

About five years ago, 29 Texas law enforcement agencies had officers certified to do commercial vehicle inspections, a DPS report showed. Now, 55 agencies have signed agreements with DPS to have officers trained to perform inspections, the department says.

Though any rig can be inspected without probable cause, Peterson said police officers use discretion, mostly picking those that look as if they need inspecting.

He said Euless stops more rock and dirt haulers because a plethora of road construction projects citywide means an abundance of such trucks.

"Rock haulers tend to be the worst violations, and I believe it's because they're on short hauls going to a dump facility," Peterson said. "The drivers don't take extra care of tending to their trucks."

Some resent having long-haul truckers lumped in with construction-related drivers, said Todd Spencer, the owner-operator association's executive director.

"We're sensitive to being tarred because of the irresponsibility of local interests that don't primarily view themselves as truckers," he said.

Spencer believes that people who run construction and excavation companies see themselves as professionals in those fields and the trucks they run as only tools used in those occupations.

"Safety isn't a priority, and isn't even something they have a special awareness of," he said.

Police can issue citations for minor violations. But, just as DPS troopers can do, for major infractions police officers can put a truck and driver out of service until the problems are corrected.

That's what Peterson did with the worst case he ever saw, involving a loaded sand truck.

It had a chain wrapped around a leaf spring to hold it to an axle. Had the chain broken or slipped, the spring and axle would have separated. Loss of the only mechanical connection between the trailer and its wheels could have sent the entire rig careening out of control.

Peterson pulled the dump truck out of service as soon as the inspection began Wednesday in a parking lot off Industrial Boulevard.

During an hour and a half inspecting the truck, Peterson and officer Ramon Fraticelli found nine out-of-service violations and more than two dozen minor violations.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst, I'd put this at a 7," Fraticelli said.

The driver, who said his boss knew he had no license but told him to drive the truck anyway, was taken to jail and faced about $1,500 worth of tickets, Peterson said.

The dump truck is owned by Estrada Concrete Co. Llc., but Francisco Estrada said he loaned it to a subcontractor friend.

"He was supposed to drive it, and he put one of his employees to drive it," Estrada said. "I wasn't aware of anything that was going on. I just loaned the truck to him because he's a friend."

Estrada said the trailer and Bobcat belong to the subcontractor, Jose Rodriguez.

Rodriguez acknowledged owning the trailer but said he was working for Estrada. Rodriguez said he didn't know the driver was unlicensed.

"There are lots of people who drive the trucks, and I don't ask people nothing. I asked [the driver] if he had tickets or arrests; he told me no."

Rodriguez evaded questions about why the trailer and its load were in such poor condition.

"The guys who loaded it, I tell them all the time, but they don't care," he said. "I promise I'm going to take care of everything. I'm going to make everything right."

'I love this stuff'

On Thursday, Peterson joined officers from Hurst, North Richland Hills and Grapevine to focus on the trucks in the latter city's jurisdiction.

Grapevine police Lt. Todd Dearing said a mutual assistance agreement puts officers from the four cities together for not only training but also enforcement.

"With all the trucks that come through our city, I love this stuff," he said. "We want to do everything we possibly can to make it safe not only for our citizens but visitors as well."

Officers flagged down 28 rigs Thursday on Texas 114 and led them to an old Albertson's parking lot on Park Boulevard.

Fourteen were put out of service. The inspectors issued 17 hazardous-violation citations, seven nonhazardous violation citations and 143 warnings.

Frequently, drivers not only know their rigs have problems but have also alerted company owners or managers. Peterson said the drivers are afraid that if they refuse to drive, they'll be fired and replaced by someone who will.

"They've been told to 'go ahead and finish the trip and we'll fix it later,'" he said.

DPS troopers also encounter such drivers, DPS Sgt. Brandon Calvin said.

"We've had guys pull up to an officer and say, 'Please put me out of service because my boss won't fix this,'" he said. "Then they tell the boss, 'They stopped me at random.'"

Still, other drivers warn one another when enforcement officers are out looking for violators. When Peterson was in his car Wednesday morning between Texas 183 and an entrance ramp, he watched rock haulers suddenly exit just east of him to U.S. 360.

Kerbow said that as Lewisville clamped down on enforcement along major highways, drivers tried to get around the checkpoints.

"Now the farm-to-market roads like 1171 and 407 between 35E and 35W have a lot of truck traffic," he said. "We know they're talking back and forth on the CB about someone working 35E, so they can divert around us. We just move our guys to work those areas, too."

Despite the horror stories, Calvin said the overwhelming majority of commercial vehicles are safe.

"If we could stop every truck on the road, the out-of-service rate would be less than 20 percent," he said. "Only about half of those are serious safety issues."

He points to DPS safety initiatives, such as its mid-June Roadcheck 2011 -- an annual 72-hour campaign that's part of a nationwide effort -- as efforts to strictly enforce commercial vehicle laws.

Troopers and other officers inspected almost 8,000 commercial vehicles that they thought may have problems, Calvin said. More than 1 of 4 -- 26.5 percent -- was taken out of service for safety violations ranging from braking system issues to bad tires to broken lights to improperly secured loads.

In addition, 212 drivers, or 2.6 percent, were taken out of service for violations ranging from improperly tracking their hours to driving with suspended, expired or canceled licenses. Four drivers had drug or alcohol infractions.

However, troopers issued 2,515 Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance decals statewide to exemplary rigs.

The decals exempt vehicles from inspections for 90 days.Dearing said cities see similar results as they inspect trucks that seem to need it.

Terry Evans, 817-390-7620

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