Changes Eyed for N.C. Trucking

Trucking safety is under close scrutiny in North Carolina, where two groups’ work on how to improve the state’s highways and roads could lead to big changes for truckers.

One task force has already completed its work and made recommendations, another has just begun its inquiry.

In May, Norris Tolson, secretary of the North Carolina Department of Transportation, created a group of state transportation officials to study truck safety and recommend ways to improve it.

Among the recommendations, were building more rest areas for truckers, including more truck safety information in drivers education classes, restricting trucks to the right lane on highways and increasing points and fines for traffic violations by commercial vehicles.

One of the task force’s most sweeping recommendations was that NCDOT create a third party system for truck inspections, which are currently performed annually by the truck owner.

“There is some concern that a trucking company does its own inspections,” said David Richards, director of the enforcement division of the state’s Division of Motor Vehicles and chairman of the task force. “The difference is that a state inspection is more regulated and little more comprehensive as far as looking at the vehicle and making sure there’s an audit trail so that there’s not what we call a ‘lick and stick’ operation going on.”

E.L. “Eb” Peters, president of the North Carolina Trucking Association, said he hadn’t taken a close look at all 66 of the group’s recommendations, but that a new inspection system would be costly and might not improve truck safety.

“With everyone I’ve spoken to in the truck manufacturing and sales business, vehicle defects are a very small part of crash causation,” he said. “The state of our equipment today is the best it’s ever been.”

For the full story, see the Jan. 4 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.