Oregon Frets About Truck Safety

One in 10 truck drivers tested positive for drugs or alcohol during a recent roadside safety check in southern Oregon, and 26% of the trucks had to be put out of service, according to state officials.

Trucking representatives say the results don’t represent the industry as a whole, but the numbers have state officials concerned about the safety of the trucks traveling Oregon’s roads.

The 48-hour inspection, dubbed Operation Trucker Check, was conducted over three days in October on trucks entering Oregon at Ashland and Klamath Falls, two towns near the border of California. The inspection was a response to a rash of truck accidents in the area during the first nine months of the year.

Most of those crashes, which occurred on a normally quiet stretch of road, were trucking’s fault, said Oregon State Police Lt. Charles Hayes, who led the operation. “Most of them involved driver error or mechanical defects, so that’s what had us worried,” he said.

Operation Trucker Check involved officers from the state police, the Oregon Department of Transportation and drug experts from city and county law enforcement agencies throughout the state.

t marked the first time the drug experts were used in concert with safety inspectors to target commercial operators on the road.

A checkpoint was established on Interstate 5 at Ashland. When truckers spread the word about the crackdown on CB radio and started to bypass Ashland, authorities said, the state police set up the second stop at Klamath Falls.

For the full story, see the Dec. 7 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.