Going by the Book at the Inspectors' Competition

TAMPA, Fla. — David Palmer of the Texas Department of Public Safety headed for home in Childress, Texas, with proof that he is the quickest, most thorough roadside truck inspector on the whole continent.

He carried with him the grand champion trophy, the prize for posting the highest point total among the men and women with badges competing at the North American Inspectors Championship.

In six days of competition, it wasn’t too odd of a contrast to see inspectors combing trucks and trailers, interviewing drivers and examining their logbooks for flaws at one end of the Tampa Convention Center while truckers tested their skills in the obstacle course at the other end.

Both the inspectors challenge and the National Truck Driving Championships and have been running together since 1993 in a highly cooperative spirit — drivers from the trucking competition serve as Guinea pigs for the anxious inspectors, and the inspectors say they learn appreciation for the drivers’ skills.

Once known as the Challenge series when the Federal Highway Administration was the primary sponsor, this year’s inspectors’ competition was organized by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, the inspectors’ own organization. It brought together 52 roadside inspectors from state and provincial police, highway and public utility agencies in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Trucks in a variety of configurations — flatbed, tank, van trailer and others — were lined up and the competitors, using the North American uniform criteria established by CVSA, checked trucks for defects within a specified time limit, and examined logbooks for false entries planted by the contest’s organizers.

A CVSA spokesman said the exercises gave participants the kind of problems they might encounter on the roadside.

While each contestant had a different style and way of doing things, the key was “uniformity,” said Mike Marsteller of the Nevada Highway Patrol.

“The regulations are the same everywhere,” said Marsteller, who took top prize in the Hazardous Materials and Cargo Tank class.

However, David Madeiros of the Rhode Island State Police conceded that in different parts of the country different flaws may be more likely.

“In Rhode Island, we are near the sea and we get a lot of corrosion,” he said.

Marsteller said that sort of problem would be rare in landlocked Nevada.

They agreed that the competition put a premium on going “by the book.”

Madeiros said participation in the tournament carries benefits beyond the possibility of winning an award.

“The contacts you can make here are valuable,” he said. “I get to know other inspectors, in other states, and if some driver tells he was cleared by an inspector in another state, I can pick up the phone and call someone I know — who knows me — and get a straight answer.”

Palmer got a big boost toward the grand champion title when he posted the highest score among the 44 entries from the U.S. and two of its territories. He also was the winner among U.S. entrants in the Vehicle and Driver Inspection category.

Robert Anderson, with the compliance unit at the Insurance Corp. of British Columbia, was the top scorer in that class among six entrants from Canada.

Jacobo Garcia of the Direccion General de Autotransporte Federal in Arias, Mexico, posted the higher score of the two Mexicans in the competition.

The other first-place finisher was James Bolin of the South Carolina State Transport Police. He took top honor in the Motor Coach division.

During the awards banquet that brought the curtain down on both the inspectors’ and drivers’ championships, Harry Eubanks, president of CVSA, presented the John Youngblood Award, named for a safety officer killed during the 1995 federal building bombing in Oklahoma City, to Lewis Hendrix of the Tennessee Department of Public Safety’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement division. The award is presented to the contestant “who best exhibits the spirit of sportsmanship.”