Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/358493
34 | Overdrive | August 2014 SHIFTING TARGET and hours violations grew as a share of all violations – hours by almost a full percentage point. The reason for Indiana's prominence in the moving violations numbers, says Utterback, is related to the structure of its enforcement program. In addition to civilian inspectors working the state's seven scale locations, a small number of troopers are certified to conduct all lev- els of roadside inspections, with about 200 other troopers throughout the state trained to conduct only Level 3 driver inspections. "They work the road," Utterback says of the latter group. "They submit so many non-Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program-funded roadside inspections, and then they're eligible to work some overtime funded by MCSAP" – the federal program that helps fund state truck enforcement activities. Utterback describes the charge given to such officers: "We want you to focus on areas known to have crashes, and we want you to focus on violations in your area known [to be associated with the] causation of crashes. … They're crafty at finding moving violations, but we're not holding their feet to the fire and tell- ing them, 'Don't turn in an inspection without a moving violation on it.' " The officers engage in targeted enforcement, actively looking for a violation to make the stop and "conduct a Level 3 inspec- tion along with that." What that looks like at roadside level is familiar to Scott Carlson, who hauls reefer and dry freight for Pennsylva- nia-based Regal Service Corp. He was pulled over this year on the Indiana Toll Road near Chicago after making a few passes. The officer "said somewhere back there I didn't signal a lane change, These 10 states issued the smallest share of clean inspections in 2013, making them the most difficult for improving CSA scores. Nationwide, four in 10 inspections are issued as clean. Inconsistency is substan- tial, ranging from a high of 65 percent in Mississippi to a low of 15 percent in Connecticut. Owner-operator Keith Stewart, who runs a lot of miles in Texas, says "it's very rare to see a Texas scale open" on the interstate system away from the oilfields and the border area. However, it's rarer for targeted enforcement in the Lone Star State to come out totally in the driver's favor, Stewart believes. Recently bobtailing from Terrell to Austin, Stewart pulled into a scale in San Marcos, where he was asked: "When's the last time you were inspected?" Stewart only recently had purchased his 2006 Peterbilt 379 and hadn't been in- spected yet. After being checked "bumper to mudflaps," a small amount of oil on his rear wheel resulted in a single violation – a warning and not an out-of-service violation, but it kept him from getting a clean inspection and $100 from his leasing carrier, Parkway Transportation. The good news? Indiana State Police's Tyler Utterback says if there's no violation on the inspection report associated with the Hours of Service, Driver Fitness, Vehi- cle Maintenance, Controlled Substances/ Alcohol or Hazmat BASICs, the carrier's scores there are helped, even though there was a violation elsewhere. In Stew- art's case, all categories but Maintenance were affected positively by his inspection. Connecticut 15% Louisiana 16% Idaho 17% Wisconsin 18% Indiana 19% Michigan 20% Texas 22% South Carolina 23% Rhode Island 24% Massachusetts 25% Lowest rates of clean inspections Ranked as a percentage of all violations. The national average is 40%. Where it's toughest to improve CsA sCores Driver Elvin Hilton's 2009 Kenworth T660 and the container chassis he was hauling May 5 caught a clean Level 1 inspection at the scale house in West Harrison, Ind. Hilton netted $150 from Cowan Systems, to whom the small fleet he drives for is leased. Inspecting officer Tyler Utterback says that, according to what he hears from drivers, more carriers than ever are rewarding drivers for clean inspections.