Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/734262
40 | Overdrive | October 2016 To come out clean from a North Carolina inspection, watch your tires and lights – and help the offi cer help you BY TODD DILLS CSA's DATA TRAIL STANDOUT STATES North Carolina Todd Dills To come out clean from a North To come out clean from a North Where offi cer discretion can help N orth Carolina's state police raised more than a few eyebrows last year when news emerged of a highway ramp parking enforcement blitz near the winery of a well-connected donor to the current governor's campaign. According to the Charlotte Observer's exposé, the win- ery owner had complained to the gov- ernor about the rigs. Subsequently, the dogs were unleashed, and the newspaper reported the state tripled the number of parking tickets written to truckers in 2015 over 2014. According to North Carolina-based owner-operator William McKelvie, following the widespread criticism that followed, such business has quieted for the most part. "Lately, I've seen more guys on the ramps, but I haven't seen state troop- ers bothering them," he says. During the North Carolina State Highway Patrol's Motor Carrier Enforce- ment Section's routine safety enforcement inspections that happen at weigh stations (35 percent of the time) and at roadside (65 percent), offi cers by and large are "not looking to jam up guys who are decent," McKelvie believes. He testifi es to fairness in all of the recent inspections he's had there, including two in June within the week around the annual Roadcheck blitz, one at a scale on I-85 and another at a roadside check. "Lights, brakes and tires," says six-truck BPW ("Best Possible Way") Transport owner Brad Wike, based in Charlotte-ar- ea Lincolnton, N.C. Those are the bedrock equipment concerns for inspec- tors nationwide that also drive Wike's priorities when avoiding problems with violations for his regional dry van/fl atbed business. Numbers in Overdrive's analysis bear him out: Though North Carolina's brake-violations ranking lags at No. 30, the state stands out for an uncommonly close focus on maintenance violations broadly, particularly those related to two of the most visible equipment problems. North Carolina enforcement ranks No. 3 in both tires and lights nationally, and No. 6 for maintenance overall. "The few things they've gotten us for, we got it honestly," Wike says, including tickets for low windshield-washer fl uid and a tire slightly low on air pressure. But such small violations can come at a hefty price $100 for the washer fl uid alone. Treatment that's more the norm among North Carolina inspectors that his fl eet has encountered, says Wike, was evidenced by a recent out-of-service order BPW managed to avoid. "I had just spent $23,000 redoing one of my trucks from one end to the other" this summer, he says. "We put bushings, kingpins, new mudfl aps and everything you can think of on at the Caterpillar place in Statesville." With the truck back out on the road, in no time "my driver calls. 'They put me out of service at the scales' " on I-40 in Statesville, Wike says. The inspector, in the course of a full Level 1 lookover, had the trucker bleed the air down. "The air beeper isn't working," the driver told Wike, referring to the alarm that is required to sound and North Carolina inspection levels follow fatality trends 85,000 80,000 75,000 70,000 90 80 70 60 2011 2012 2013 2014 TOTAL INSPECTIONS Tractor-trailer-involved crash fatalities Inspections Fatalities Todd Dills Something of a correlation between annual inspection levels and tractor-trailer-involved fatalities on North Carolina's highways sug- gests a reactive approach to inspections by the North Carolina enforcement program. North Carolina Highway Patrol's Motor Carrier Enforcement Section representatives did not respond to queries related to this story.