Commercial vehicles and their operators in southeast Saskatchewan became part of the annual North American roadside safety inspection blitz known as Roadcheck.
This year's event was conducted between June 4 and 6 with the Saskatchewan event being conducted for 72 consecutive hours, starting at 11 p.m. on June 4 and wrapping up at 11 p.m. June 6.
Roadcheck is co-ordinated by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) in partnership with the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA) member jurisdictions.
Sean Mustatia, a commercial vehicle enforcement specialist, and spokesman for the team that conducted the Saskatchewan blitz this year, said that 35 officials were involved in the event that was headquartered at the provincial Highways and Infrastructure weigh scales and office located a few kilometres west of the city.
"We had Highway Transportation officers, RCMP, SGI officers on the scene as well as Estevan Police Service and Saskatoon Police Service personnel taking shifts," he said.
The checkpoint primarily focused on trucks and larger commercial vehicles plying their way northwest on Highway 39 with some additional but lesser attention being paid to traffic on the east side of Estevan as well.
Mustatia said "nothing alarming was uncovered. There had been some minor rule or minor law changes over the past year and some vehicles weren't in compliance, so they were taken out of service (OOS) until the changes could be made," he said.
In most instances, the corrections could be made on the spot or within a few minutes or hours since the infractions usually dealt with tarp straps or lesser loads being secured by bungee cords that had once been allowed but are no longer.
"What we found was fairly typical with the exception of there being more trucks from the United States, but we weren't surprised seeing as how this area is so close to the American border," Mustatia said.
Most of the American-based trucks and truckers had no issues regarding load sizes or weights since U.S. regulations regarding load restrictions are more stringent than they are in Canadian provinces.
Ten drivers were "taken out of service," for being unfit to drive for a variety of reasons while 108 of the 398 trucks inspected were pulled out of service, which represented 27.1 per cent of the total vehicles inspected. But, as the enforcement specialist said, most were for minor infractions that could be easily and quickly corrected.
The blitz included all Canadian provinces as well as regions in the United States and Mexico.
In total, 78.5 per cent of the commercial vehicles inspected successfully met the CVSA's comprehensive and stringent on-road inspection criteria. They were conducted at 167 sites in Canada with Saskatchewan's test area being focused entirely in and around Estevan.
Vehicles that were waved through were the ones that were displaying the CVSA decal, indicating that they had passed the inspection in another jurisdiction prior to arriving on the local highway.
Over the three days, 7,528 inspections were conducted with 5,907 vehicles and 7,351 drivers successfully passing. The roadside enforcement officials issued 5,747 new decals to individual trucks, trailers and passenger-carrying vehicles across Canada signifying CVSA's highest degree of safety and mechanical fitness.
Overall, 1,597 trucks, 24 passenger-carrying vehicles and 177 drivers were placed out-of-service for various defects or violations. An out-of-service condition can occur for infractions as simple as a rear signal light not working effectively or faulty steering or brakes. Other defects were found with wheels, tires, frame and load security. In many cases, the CCMTA said, the drivers were able to make the necessary adjustments right on site and were then re-inspected successfully so they could continue their trip. A total of 2.4 per cent of the drivers placed out-of-service were for service log-book issues, driver qualifications or other paperwork problems.
Mustatia said most of the results were pretty well in line with previous years.
The 2012 inspection blitz was staged in and around Saskatoon, he said.
The OOS rate of 27.1 per cent was higher this year compared with 2011 and 2012. Last year there had been 605 vehicles checked in Saskatchewan, with 84 being taken out-of-service for a 13.9 OOS percentage rate. In 2011, the percentage of OOS was 18.1 per cent on 513 vehicles being inspected.
This year's OOS rate in Saskatchewan was the third highest in Canada, surpassed only by Alberta and British Columbia who had OOS rates of 34.4 and 27.6 per cent respectively.
There were no vehicles carrying passengers inspected during the Saskatchewan blitz.
The most common defects were found in brake systems and brake adjustments, said the CCMTA. Improper loading issues were a distant second in terms of frequency.
