Hey Diesel Bear

I can't speak for them, but roadside inspections are being done each and every day throughout the country. From what I have seen on "blitzes" is that you concentrate a group of inspectors in one area and conduct inspections. Some of those inspectors may not be on the road everyday, they could come from an office job, but still are inspectors so it increases the number or inspectors that are on the road that particular day. Each and every day, trucks are inspected, trucks are given CVSA decals for clean inspections, trucks are placed out of service for defects. Some are just given an inspection with violations that have to be corrected when they return to their terminal. Some days I put numerous trucks out of service, but some days I don't put any out of service. It's kinda like fishing. Some days you catch a fish, some days you don't catch anything. So for you to think that every day I or a group on inspectors can catch every sub par truck on the road is ridiculous. You find the ones you can find, you do the inspections and the violations are what they are. If a truck doesn't have a violation, I'm writing the inspection up, putting the CVSA decal on it and thanking the driver for his time. If the truck is out of service, the same thing occurs, I write up the inspection, place the truck out of service, note the defects I found and thank the driver for his time.

 

I dont know if the dot cop was telling the truth or not, but he told me more than a few dot cops dont like messing with the real dirty ugly looking trucks because they dont want to get that dirty and they dont want to mess with that much paperwork, and that would explain why every truck in line getting inspected was clean and tidy and all the nasty looking trucks where running right through on that day.

 

Well I must be the exception to that rule. I don't inspect, generally, clean brand new trucks. I look for trash. I look for dirty\, dingy nasty looking trucks. I also look for driver's that drive like d****. They usually make for a fun combination to remove from the highways. If I don't have grease from head to toe and a uniform that is filthy I don't feel as I have worked that day. My hands look like that of a diesel mechanic. I have tried gloves, but don't like it. My job is to remove the junk, what good does it do to inspect a brand new truck? Yeah I know every now and again I will find something.

 

I started out only inspecting only dirty trucks too. One day I went to assist another officer check a "pretty, shiny "clean" truck he had stopped. We found two cracked rims and a cracked frame. The driver said his boss told him that "DMV won't mess with clean trucks around here, so we have to wash our trucks every week". From then on I checked whatever I found on the road.

 

Well said DB. I wish more folks in government employed your (and my) type of common sense. Your logic should parallel over to the airport security where the TSA should be concentrating inspections/searches on sand people with diapers on their heads and not giving Grandmother the anal exam.

 

The folks in the office do the work to keep the guys on the road, on the road. The daily amounts of paperwork I and any other officer do is crazy. I do sometimes double and triple paperwork for the same thing. Sounds crazy I know, but that's the way it's done. So the guy or gal in the "office", who is an inspector, is doing the administrative work that needs to be done to keep the overall operation moving along. My supervisor for example, is an inspector (one I have worked with for over 10 years, who used to be on the highways with me every day doing inspections). Now as a supervisor he is responsible for all the guys and gals in my area of responsibility. He has to do all the reports on each of us. Conduct investigations on us when a driver says we did this or that. When the Data Q's come in, (the challenges to an inspection) he has to go back and look at the facts. When the facility has an issue (roof leaking, toilet broke, computer broke etc) he has to take care of that. When we wreck a vehicle, he has to do that paperwork. When we have training, get a new car, get a new computer etc . etc etc. These folks plates are full doing B.S., but the B.S. needs to be done so I'm not having to do it and I can stay on the road doing my job. The civilian support people are the same way. The do a service, that doesn't tie me or any others up from doing our jobs. If you think about the trucking companies. The driver has a role. The dispatcher has a role. Safety has a role and the owners/administration has a role. All have a job to do that gets the said driver from point A to point B in a timely fashion. If you as a driver had to do everyone else's job, you wouldn't be able to make that run in say 6 hours, you would be tied up doing something else. The same for me. Without their help and assistance in the "office" I wouldn't get half the trucks stopped that I stop. So, team work is the way things are done. No different than any other industry. So my supervisor gets to come out and play every now and again.

 

I'am glad you do because i'am seeing alot more junk trucks on the road in the areas i run, atleast once a day i'am parked next to a truck loading with bald tires or half its lights out and wonder how the hell he makes it down the road with out being stopped.