Roadcheck 2006 – a 72-hour intense commercial vehicle inspection effort held in early June – resulted in a slight reduction from the same 2005 effort in the percentage of truck, bus and hazardous materials vehicles placed out of service, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance announced. On the other hand, the driver out-of-service rate during the effort rose to 5.6 percent from 4.4 percent in 2005, mostly due to hours-of-service violations.
During a week aimed at catching tired truckers, Arizona law enforcement officers stopped 377 trucks and cited 2,125 commercial vehicle violations on Interstate 10. Arizona Department of Public Safety officials participating in “Operation Boa II” placed 110 drivers and 85 trucks out of service, and they also discovered 128 out-of-service violations, made two misdemeanor warrant arrests and recovered one stolen tractor-trailer.
Robinson Cartage – a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based company that transports machines, equipment, construction materials and other oversized loads – received the 2006 Transportation Group Safety Improvement Award from the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association in recognition of its year-over-year reduction in accident frequency rate for miles traveled.
For the second consecutive year, Oregon drivers tested highest and Rhode Island the lowest on the GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test. GMAC used a sample of 5,288 license holders who took a 20-question test representative of a written driver’s test. The test is available at this site.
Another hot August night had come and gone, and John Doe wasn’t looking forward to another cloudless day in sweltering south Alabama, where he was hauling a machinery-laden flatbed to a construction site on the outskirts of Mobile. If the truth be known, Doe was daydreaming about his forthcoming Gulf fishing trip. If things went his way, in a few days he’d be on a charter boat, trying to land one of those big ones that never seemed to care much for his bait.
Moving down the two-lane highway at the posted speed of 45 mph, Doe rounded a bend, and
