An interesting article appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this month, highlighting the fact that many local police and sheriff's departments statewide are pulling over and inspecting commercial vehicles, a job that technically belongs to the Texas Department of Public Safety, because of the high number of unsafe and overweight trucks on the roads. We'll discuss the optic in two parts.

The local departments say they've begun to stop questionable semi-trucks because the DPS just plain doesn't have the time or the personnel to do it, and the other drivers on the road need to be protected.

"We've found 80,000-pound trucks with eight of 10 brakes not working," a spokesman from the Euless Police Department said. "These are typical 18-wheelers, and this is not uncommon."

The problem could have to do with the number of commercial trucks on the road. Texas has registered hundreds of thousands of commercial vehicles, and with all of the traffic from long-haul commercial vehicles from Mexico, keeping a watchful eye on every truck is nearly impossible.

Currently, the DPS has 427 officers who are given the duty of commercial vehicle enforcement and there are also 333 Highway Patrol Level II troopers who have been trained to help out as well.

DPS supervises the trucking in the state by operating periodical inspections at weigh stations along the state's major highways. Some troopers are also assigned to patrol rural highways to enforce the laws governing commercial vehicles in the state.

But local departments say that truckers know how DPS operates and some purposefully avoid the inspection stations and highways where DPS officers patrol, often going into cities to avoid an inspection.

Please check back next week for more on this topic.

Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, "Local law enforcement increasingly stopping, inspecting commercial trucks," Terry Evans, 7/9/2011.