DOT and the State Boys have gone Mad!!!!!!!

With times being tough and people not having alot of money to fix things we as truckers are easy targets. Plus the fact that loggers are usually heavy and in rough terain things break easily.

 

It's not just loggers . DOT is getting rough in GA , AL , MS , and LA .

 

They are gonna get rough everywhere! Alot of guys don't have the money to fix stuff so they just keep running till they get caught.

 

But then they sit at the scale and pay more to get it fixed and a fine besides .

 

Welcome to the world of trucking that the steel haulers, gravel haulers, and farmers in nothwest Ohio has seen for years. Personally I think they should be inspecting and inforcing the regs more than what they are. We all see the trucks out here with bald tires, lights that don't work, and countless other things. I will be the first to say that my truck isn't perfect and if they look hard enough they will probably find something wrong. But there are to many neglected trucks on the road.

 

Money, or lack thereof is not an excuse for lack of maintenance. It just this simple; if your truck has an out of service defect you shall be placed out of service until such defect is repaired. And if you can't afford to maintain it, perhaps it should be parked until it can be fixed. In my personal opinion, this is much more economically sound than getting into a fatal accident because of bad equipment and going to jail because someone failed to fix something that was clearly dangerous.

In addition part 396.11 clearly requires a driver to report non-out of service defects on the Driver Vehicle Inspection Report post-trip after a roadside inspection simply because you now have a piece of paper from the cop that shows you have a non-out of service defect, and those non-out of service defects must be repaired before using the vehicle again pursuant to 396.11(c). And with the computer based data systems how hard is it to prove you violated 396.11(c) by not fixing the non-out of service defects? Why is this rule there? Well, that's simple too; non-out of service defects become out of service defects.

Is the economy bad? Yes, it is. Are there more state cops inspecting? Yes, there probably are. But an overall perspective would indicate that #1.; it gets unsafe trucks repaired, #2.; makes the highways safer, and, #3.; it makes money for the states which is also a good thing.

From a retired federal DOT official