DOT rolls into repair shop lot to do inspections & issue tickets

I was put OOS in Oregon for not wearing prescription glasses while driving. The problem is, I was wearing them, and only took them off and hung them around my neck when the DOT officer asked for my license. I told him to review the video of me driving onto the scales, and he would see that they were on right up to the point when he approached me. He didn't care, and wrote the ticket. I went on the DOT website and made a Q request for review, but the DOT cop just lied and it was kept on my record.

 

Oregon makes stuff up on the fly. Ask @otherhalftw, he was wrongly put OOS service for his log not matching what the scale showed as far as time he crossed the scale the week before. Even though his Qualcomm verified his version. And he'd had a reset in between scale visits, so even if he had cheated the week before, it wasn't an OOS violation.

The overzealousness of these DOT cops is doing real harm to how we see the police.

 

Out west there is a better chance of that working, but only if the parking lot is actually owned. Many times businesses are actually leasing the property, and at least the parking lots there is nothing the business can do about LEO presence. The most irritating part of this to me is that if you get hit while parked they won't come out to file a report because it happened on private property, but then when it suits them they'll come do inspections.

 

Yea, but our friendly Otter is smart enough to fight things the right way. His being forced out of trucking was bad for the industry.

 

I was way behind a truck that was throwing chunks of rubber at oncoming vehicles. I called out on the cb he said he was heading to tire shop and it was a outside tire that was why he was still doing 60 mph to not slow traffic down. In video officer doesn’t say if someone called them or not . If was them trolling the lot then they are Richards .

 

As soon as they asked for my license and registration, I'd request that they bring a Supervisor on scene, until such time, the doors will be locked, the windows rolled up, and they'll be ignored.

Secondarily, as is often discussed about crappy intermodal equipment, these cops going after this driver, meanwhile, those of us in intermodal are begging DOT to crack down on chassis owners and railroads about junk chassis and they refuse. We had a tire blow out the other day, according to the sidewall stamps, the carcass was 20+ yrs old.

 

I kind of think they followed him in. Or he really just enjoys listening to the sound of his flashers while he waits. And if he really had been there an hour why not ask them to go to the shop with him to prove he’s been there waiting to get it fixed?

 

Quote from CDL article:
“Nothing happened this time thankfully but it happens far too often to drivers with worse outcomes. This is one of the many reasons that there’s a lack of respect for the DOT among the trucking community,” Keyser said.

Keyser said nothing happened:
Does he mean no inspection paperwork? Did the trooper use this situation as a learning "inspection" for the trainee?
Too many questions.

 

Jesus, that's older than me when I was 19!!

 

Knowing a bit about your background and that you ran your business successfully for decades before you went into this one, and that you had a brand new tractor and trailer and you keep it presentable and you are professional, and that happened to you...

That is really some Bizarro World crap.

 

Yeah it kind of had me scratching my head too. There was absolutely no reason for it. My truck and trailer were just a few weeks old, clean, and the DOT cop claimed he was a former truck driver. I just don't get the mentality that makes a person want to be that way. Honestly it's the only time I've had a bad run-in with DOT. Another time, a woman DOT cop in Oregon pulled me into the scales and had me come in with my paperwork. She said her system show that I didn't pay a month of my road taxes and could pull me out of service and give me a big fine. Instead she gave me a number to call and she was right, I had missed a month and not realized it because I had paid everything after that month. I paid the fee, and she sent me on my way. That's how it should be.