Texas State Troopers recently participated in Roadcheck, which is a nationwide effort over three days to inspect as many commercial trucks and buses as possible. The goal of Roadcheck is to ‘raise the bar for safer trucks, buses, and drivers” and thereby make our roadways safer. This is done by inspecting every major component of the 18-wheelers and buses as well as testing brakes, tires and lights. Recognizing that truck driver fatigue and inattention is one of the major causes of trucking accidents in Texas and throughout the country (in fact it is estimated that truck drivers play a role in 9 out of every 10 trucking accidents), drivers were required to produce their log books to make sure they were in compliance with driving time regulations. While the results of this year’s inspection are not known, last year over 65,000 commercial trucks or buses were inspected, and this year inspections are expected to exceed 75,000. In Texas alone, nearly 7000 trucks and buses were inspected last year with nearly 25 % of those trucks being removed from the roads due to serious safety violations, and an additional 160 drivers were removed from the roadways due to faulty log books or invalid driver’s licenses. Roadcheck is clearly an important step to keeping our highways free of dangerous trucks, thereby reducing the number of injuries and fatalities that result for trucking accidents.
