Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/683064
26 // OWNER OPERATOR // JUNE 2016 News & Notes 'A broken system': Small fleet owner on CSA, SFD reliance on roadside inspections, violations By Todd Dills Our company's in great shape, but this system is a broken system. –Bob DeLullo of 16-truck, St. Marys, Pa.-based Dellulo Truck- ing What was DeLullo talking about? The bed- rock system on which the Federal Motor Car- rier Safety Administration's CSA program, and perhaps more importantly the planned Safety Fitness Determination system, is based. That'd be the one that sends you over the scales on a daily basis or to the roadside for a log check or wider inspection. DeLullo presents a case in point: His com- pany is a bulk wood-products hauler, mostly hauling its own product with its affiliate Woodbed company. It's not uncommon for DeLullo drivers to carry two-gallon jugs for situations they might encounter in the course of a workday: One filled with salt, the other with oil. An inspection in New York resulted in a "hazmat violation," DeLullo says. The jugs are re-used treatment totes. "So when I buy the jugs, there's oil in them," he adds, but once they're re-used they're "not an approved con- tainer," the lynchpin of that particular viola- tion. In a more recent incident, an officer DeLullo describes as a "local city cop" in Warren, Pa., that had been trained to conduct CVSA North American Standard inspections, stopped a De- Lullo driver en route to the company's shop (a few miles away) to repair a tire. "My driver, just the day before, was in a long DOT check, so he wasn't 100 percent professional with the cop," DeLullo says. "He was pissed that he had been through it the day before." Ultimately, the officer detained the truck for a few hours by issuing two out-of-service vio- lations — one for a flat tire, and another for improper securement. Of what, you ask? Improper securement of the oil jugs bungee'd next to the frame rail behind the cab. In conversation with De- Lullo later, he says, "The cop told, 'he wasn't nice,'" referring to the driver. "And I said, 'Well this is how this works, I guess – this isn't about safety. This is about just how nice you can be.'"