As in Georgia and most other states around the nation, brakes rank high, No. 2, in another top-10 inspection-intensity state’s violation priorities. Significant in Illinois’ case, however, is what the violation category’s tied with in the state’s rankings: speeding. Illinois offers a statistical counterpoint to Georgia’s falling inspection numbers. Between 2012 and 2014, Illinois shifted priorities, pouring resources into truck enforcement. It nearly doubled its total number of inspections to replace Nevada in the inspection-intensity top 10, measured per lane-mile, jumping 15 places to No. 7.
Rob Dykes, posting on Overdrive’s Facebook page, pointed to observed increased activity the past year at the improved scale facility eastbound and westbound on I-280 in Moline. “They seem to be open 24/7 with the PrePass turned off,” he wrote. “You have to parade through just to get sent to the bypass lane.”
Illinois’ fixed-location inspections were up by a small margin last year, according to the data. However, the vast majority of its increase is attributable to roadside enforcement. The number of such inspections grew by 60 percent from 2013 to 2014. Hours of service, speeding and improper lane changes all appear in the state’s top six violation categories, in addition to equipment/maintenance-related issues.
The first of those categories, hours, was significantly at issue in accidents involving trucks that killed two (and severely injured one) state police officers between November 2012 and January 2014. That created ideal conditions for an increased awareness of truck enforcement throughout the state, says Don Schaefer, Mid-West Truckers Association executive director.
Meanwhile, Schaefer says Illinois’ formerly low inspection numbers were in part due to low staffing. “The state’s budget at that time was way down in terms of on-the-road officers, those guys who could do inspections. I know recently they’ve talked about the number of sworn personnel on the road as being built back up.”
However, Illinois State Police Master Sergeant Todd Armstrong says numbers weren’t down, necessarily, just that priorities shifted. Stakeholders in truck enforcement convened in the aftermath of the aforementioned accidents and refocused enforcement on trucks, accounting for the large inspection increase in 2014. Its 950-odd-member statewide squad comes out of the state’s police academies certified for Level 3 credentials inspections, where a threefold increase was seen between 2012 and 2014, Armstrong emphasizes.
