When it comes to commercial truck safety inspections, Russ Cottrell has heard just about every excuse in his nearly 30 years as Lane County weighmaster.
"I'm on my second generation," the 65-year-old said with a laugh on Monday. "I get, 'Hey, you weighed for my father,' or 'Hey, you weighed for my grandfather.' I've been in the business a long time. But it's all about how you approach it. All I'm asking for is compliance."
And that's what Cottrell was asking for on Monday, along with Eugene police and state Department of Transportation officials who performed truck inspections near Coburg and Fox Meadow roads in the First Baptist Church parking lot.
The inspections, funded through a state grant, were part of a multiagency effort to promote traffic safety by enforcing the laws and safety regulations relating to commercial trucks.
Monday's inspection was the final of four this year. But the program is expected to continue in the years to come, Eugene police Lt. Doug Mozan said.
The campaign's purpose is to reduce the number of accidents and exposure of risk to both truckers and the public, Mozan said.
"We have a very high crash rate of commercial vehicles in the Eugene-Springfield area," he said.
The police department officers participating in the program are trained by Transportation Department and federal officials to identify specific safety violations, Mozan said. These can range from tires with too little air to load or securement violations.
Cottrell said he encountered his share of tough-talking truck drivers when he first started in 1986. But today, most are respectful and want to be in compliance, he said, and so, for the most part, his interactions with drivers are pleasant. Even when he takes them out of service.
"People ask why I haven't retired, and it's because this is my job and my hobby," Cottrell said. "You don't retire from your hobby."
On Monday, Cottrell took one truck out of service about 11:30 a.m. for a tire misalignment issue. It was his 45th inspection this year, all of which resulted in taking a truck out of service.
In all, 63 trucks were inspected on Monday, and 13 were taken out of service. Details on which violations were identified were not immediately available.
During an inspection last month on Randy Pape Beltline and West 11th Avenue, 21 trucks were stopped for alleged violations and asked to pull into an inspection zone. Six trucks were ultimately taken out of service for inadequate load securement, flat tires or no safety break-away protection or electric brake lock for trailers.
Additionally, inspectors discovered 36 violations on those 21 trucks and wrote four citations, including failure to pay registration, false log information, no insurance and illegal window tint.
In a local inspection on July, 22 commercial trucks were inspected and 14 were placed out of service, which rated well above the national out-of-service average of 15 percent for all trucks inspected, officials said.
Mozan said inspectors are sensitive to the truckers' needs as well as to roadway safety.
"These guys are commercial truck drivers and their business is getting product from Point A to Point B and getting service delivered," he said. "And every minute that we have them out of service is costing their company, and sometimes them personally, money. So we try to do this in as efficient a way as possible.
"There isn't a safer way to do this when you're dealing with this volume of truckers."
The Register-Guard, Eugene, Ore.
