Airport Rd. inspection blitz nets 40% failure rate

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MISSISSAUGA, Ont. — Forty per cent of commercial vehicles inspected during a two-day blitz at the International Centre failed the inspection, Peel Regional Police have announced.

The blitz took place June 27-28 on Airport Road.

The initiative was a joint effort between: Peel Regional Police, Toronto Police Service, Ontario Provincial Police, Service, York Regional Police Service, Halton Regional Police Service, Ontario Ministry of Transportation, Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Revenue.

A total of 190 vehicles were inspected and 76 failed. Thirty six had their licence plates removed, 199 provincial charges were laid, seven drivers had their licences suspended and one vehicle was seized.

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  • Looks like more enforcement and higher fines are in order.
    As an operator that spends money on training and has a high standard for maintenance, this is very disappointing news. It is every operator, owner and drivers responcibilility to check their rig daily. If your not doing it right you shouldn’t be in business.
    Reports like this are an embarrassment to our industry. Pull up your socks.

  • I wish these kind of headlines would really include the number of trucks that were NOT inspected, but passed through the location. If 1000 trucks were not inspected, because they appeared well maintained and clean,and the inspectors chose to give these 190 vehicles a closer scrutiny, it puts the situation in a whole different light!

  • Kurt is right.

    These inspections, be it during blitzes or at the scales, are NOT random. They take a quick look, and if they don’t see any defects they cut the truck loose, no paperwork, no passing report. They only do a full level 1 when they are fairly certain they will find an OOS defect. It skews the numbers.

  • Unfortunately this statistic by itself is misleading and gives the public a wrong impression about what is really happening in our industry. We all know that during these blitz’s the authroities target trucks that they think will fail. How many one, two, or even three year old trucks do you see getting inspected? Zero to none! The real statistic and headline should perhaps say that out of 25,000 trucks that passed by the inspectors during the blitz 190 or .0076 percent were selected for inspection and out of that number 76 failed, or .003 percent. Guess those stats wouldn’t make a very good headline or present much of a case to justify that large amount of money the government pours into the OPP, MTO and local police forces to harass truckers.

  • I also think Kurt is correct as is John. I am sure the inspectors love to be able to publish numbers that can make it look like they are keeping the roads safe and justifying their existences. Of course, we all know that a truck doesn’t break while sitting in the shop, only when it is working. Pretty hard to fix something if it goes wrong on the road before it gets back to the shop and not something that renders the truck dangerous to drive, just able for an inspector to put it out of service. Admittedly there are trucks out there that shouldn’t be but I can’t believe that the numbers would be that high.Can’t believe that as owners/drivers we continue to put up with this BS just to eek out an existence doing something we enjoy. So glad I don’t have to work in such a communist type regime as is in Ontario to make a living; I would undoubtedly have quit long ago.

  • Headlines without content have very value to our industry. As an industry paper, I would expect some questions to be asked or investigative work to be done to tell us where as an industry we failed. List the deficiencies that were safety related and the ones that were document related and let us know what the problems were. Our industry will never get better if we are not FULLY informed.

  • If todays drivers would do a ‘proper’ circle check they wouldn’t be leaving the yard!! Kicking the tires & checking the lights doesn’t “CUT IT” 5 min. & their pulling out of the yard. A proper check take 45 min minium!!! When I was teaching at a acredited driver school I had many “older drivers” come for a refresher course when they hit the 65 age limit to renew their lic. & most said ‘this is Bull $hit when I showed them how to do a DOT inspection, or “you expect me to remember all this” Some company’s still tell a driver to “drive it or go home”!!!! & this is the result BUSTED!!!!

  • Come on gentlemen, time to step it up. You work with the general public. Be more responsible with your equipment. Take pride in what you do. They have a job and we have a job. Safety is part of it.Tired of excuses.

  • just to say that graduating from a driving program makes one a professional driver (getting paid to do it)does not make a professional truck driver ,as well as paying licensing and buying used trucks doesn’t make an ideal owner . i have been driving for 13 years that doesn’t make me an authority , but if you spend enough time sitting on the side of the highway broken down, it can be very eye opening , everyone needs to relax and thank those that think enough of them to protect them , and have us all return safe and sound from every trip

  • The 40% number is extremely misleading, having worked several blitzes in the past, it should be noted that vehicles that have obvious issues are pulled over, and then those vehicles are inspected.
    The headline should read “40 % of commercial vehicles with visual issues were put out of service”.
    In other words if inspections were done on vehicles that travel our highways and are subject to daily inspections that OOS number would be less than 5 %.
    Your scare headlines are very misleading to the general public, and put our industry in a bad light!

    Lane Kranenburg
    Retired Executive Director
    AMTA

  • The generation of numbers like are indicative of a cash strapped provincial government . Targeting what looks like junk works and may charged with political motivation. The unions deal the cards in Ontario
    Add to the equation the “Quick-pass” driving schools and the 4o% is very attainable. How unfair . “We get the drivers we deserve.”

  • Cash srapped or not, you don’t take a POS out on the road!! If it’s not safe don’t drive it!! How many drivers do a brake stroke measurement?? Bet it’s 0. I’m glad I retired when I did, as the responsibility on the driver is TOO MUCH now, too many companies expect you to drive it no matter what & it’s YOUR lic. on the line!!!!

  • Given the location area, I would venture to guess that these trucks and drivers that were put out of service were ‘foreign’ or ‘not native Canadian’ drivers…these are the ones that , many times, give competent drivers and the trucking industry a bum rap! Doesn’t anyone have the courage to address this problem?! And what about the rest of the inspection blitz area…let’s be fair…all around!…and DO SOMETHING about these substandard trucks and drivers and and turn trucking back to a Professional Skilled Trade!

  • We need to understand a day is 24 hrs 10 for rest
    plus a 30 min break plus (Some one said) 45 mins
    for circle check that leaves 12.75 hrs left to work. Now minus see dispatch, wait to load,
    wait to unload, traffic. weather, meetings, fueling, wait to cross the board, wait with a flat
    for tire man,help me remember all the things
    that need to be done that dont involve moving the
    truck down the road..

    Thing is if this keeps going there will be no time
    left to drive the truck..

  • Not surprising seeing the suspended driver. VerX Direct claims that on average 1.5% of company drivers are suspended at any given time.

  • Don’t forget about the 20% quota.
    The industry has financially dried up for carriers trying to keep in compliance, with too many regulations. How do carriers pay drivers more when freight rates are not where they should be? Why would a carrier pay drivers more when the drivers’ work ethic largely has dissolved to a pithetic state? A lot of drivers are not being trained properly. I have been backed-into four times by people who should never drive a truck.
    Truck driving schools need more regulations, not carriers.

  • If we are to believe that trucks are pulled over due to obvious defects, and 40% are “out of Service”, then how many good looking trucks rolled on with hidden defects? I continue to work on cars these days as I am almost 70 years old and trucks are just to physical. You would be amazed at the number of good looking cars have serious brake, suspension and frame (uni-body) defects which would place a truck out of service. I am in full agreement that trucks should be held to a higher standard but cars should not be allowed on the road with safety defects either. At this time the Province has no legislation in place to have cars safety inspected once sold or resold. After the sale, maintenance is up to the owner and as long as the car starts it is down the road. In my town I can count, every, at least ten cars with a head lamp not working and many times the same car for days in a row. A head lamp not working should be easy for a Cop to spot yet nothing is done. Lets scrap the “Emission Test” and replace it with yearly car inspections. Trucks having a high “Out of Service” rate is a driver as well as company attitude towards safe vehicles. Safe vehicles are less expensive to operate. Preventative maintenance is cheaper than “Corrective maintenance.” I have been in the trucking maintenance field for nearly 50 years!

  • Many trucks that would fail a inspection are still safe the answer is not more inspections but pay these foreign drivers with (leased trucks) fair rates. These drivers are not being paid enough to run well maintained trucks

  • As mentioned here many times, the inspectors target the older owner/operator trucks knowing there is a good chance of finding defects and that is good these trucks are pulled from our roads, but it is wrong to not include the vast majority of mechanically fit newer vehicles from big companies that keep their vehicles in top notch condition, these trucks are rarely seen pulled in for a safety blitz. A Quote From Tom: Lets scrap the “Emission Test” and replace it with yearly car inspections Unquote. There are too many not mechanically fit car/light trucks on the roads. The government has already mandated the new vehicles be compliant with the clean air emissions. A yearly inspection would get a lot of the junk off our roads and make it a safer place to drive

  • Can’t disagree with any of the comments above. All make good and valid points. Too bad the ones that care are the only ones reading these. The ones that can change this aren’t reading anything to do with any type of trucking news. Maybe the stick page, but that’s it. Joe public won’t ever see this. All they know now is that big 40% headline. , and that’s what government and the media crave. Demonize an industry, justify their own existence and blacken someone elses eye, kick it while it’s down. Keeps people from prying into their issues if you can keep the light shining on someone else’s problems. Those are headlines to sell, they don’t want anyone to open a paper or flip open a laptop and read, amazing number of Ontario trucks are extremely safe. Whose going to read that? Media skew their headlines for maximum impact on joe average ( dumbass ) public. they know in most cases the only part of an article read will be the bold headline and the first couple sentences so that’s where the juice is. IF there happens to be some truth in there somewhere it will be down the bottom or buried in the middle where a large percentage will never see it. Again, how many times have we read truck involved in fatal collision in bold, only to read on and see it was a pick up truck or SUV. C’mon people, we do have lots of issues, we all know that, but we sure don’t need help by media and news to be made look worse. the other comments hit the nail on the head. Now does anyone care?