Take I-74 west from Cincinnati, and shortly you’ll cross into Indiana, topping a hill that overlooks the West Harrison weigh and inspection station. There’s a fair likelihood that state police 1st Sgt. Tyler Utterback will be there, as he was on May 5, when a four-wheeler topped the hill, appearing as if it was part of the grille of the tractor-trailer behind it, Utterback says.
If the truck had had a PrePass unit installed, it might have bypassed the scale, and Utterback would have gotten a clear look at just how close he was following the four-wheeler in front of him. “If I was on patrol,” as he often is, he says, “I would have stopped him for following too close.”
While the close driving didn’t net the trucker’s carrier points in the Unsafe Driving Compliance, Safety, Accountability BASIC (Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Category) this time, it was enough for Utterback to determine that the truck was going to be inspected before it ever hit the scales. A leaky wheel seal and inoperative, lubricant-coated left drive wheel brake put the driver out of service.
Targeted roadside enforcement is becoming more common as enforcement departments across the nation increasingly focus on drivers’ on-highway behavior. With crash causation studies highlighting driver error and unsafe behavior – from both four-wheeler and truck drivers – expect more states’ violation profiles to resemble Indiana’s more closely, with most inspections conducted not at a fixed weigh-station location but along the roadside, often after a traffic stop.
Among all 48 continental states, 2013 saw 29 states increase their attention to moving violations, figured as a percentage of each state’s total violations. Among the top such states (shown above), nearly 3 in 4 saw their moving violations’ share grow in 2013 against other violations. (Access data for all 48 continental states via the interactive maps and downloadable rankings OverdriveOnline.com/csa.)
Also, 29 states boosted their focus on hours of service violations.
