Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation (MTO) recognized several years ago that when it comes to truck safety, driver performance and behavior are the most critical factors. So MTO designed its two newest inspection facilities with that in mind, providing inspectors better opportunity to get up close and personal with drivers.

Vehicle condition remains very close to the top of the enforcement priority list, and the new Super Coops let inspectors do a quick walk-around before making an inspection or pass decision.

What this means to carriers and ­drivers, or course, is trucks are now less likely to squeak through a roadside check unaccosted.

MTO recently opened two of these new facilities — one on the eastbound lanes of Highway 401 at the 22-mile-marker east of Windsor, and the other on Highway 402, eastbound, a few minutes east of Sarnia. Construction costs were $5.4 and $6 million respectively.

The flashing lights on the highway warning signs still invite drivers in, but that’s where the similarities to the old-style “chicken coops” end. Trucks no longer glide past the front of the building and onto a scale. All traffic is routed around back into what Windsor enforcement supervisor Dave Beneteau calls the triage area.

At the end of the approach ramp, there are two triage booths as well as a bypass lane for over-width loads. At the booth, inspectors do short face-to-face interviews with the driver, often asking for logbooks and other pertinent paperwork. They’ll be sizing up the condition of the driver while they’re at it, looking for signs of fatigue or impairment. They will likely do a walk-around the truck as well, including a visual brake-stroke check.

“That’s why we call that section triage,” Beneteau says. “We can take a closer look than we were able to before at the old-style scales, and determine from there whether the truck or the driver needs more attention. If we’re satisfied with the truck, and the driver’s got everything in order, they’re on their way.”

Some will roll right through triage; some could spend anywhere from five to 20 minutes at the booth. That could create a backup on the inbound lane, so cameras monitor traffic volume on the off-ramp. The facility will close automatically when a dozen or so trucks have queued up.

Vehicle weight — axle, axle grouping, spacing, and gross — are logged as the truck enters the facility. The inspector in the triage booth is alerted to anything close to irregular. If vehicle weight is questionable, the driver will be directed to a plate scale adjacent to the booth for a more precise weigh-and-measure exercise.

Beneteau told Today’s Trucking that weight violations are rare at these two new east-bound scales. “They’re somewhere near fifth or sixth on our list,” he says.

Still, MTO is watching — just not the way they do at other scales.

Come On Inside:

If weight isn’t an issue, but something else has caught the inspector’s eye, he or she will ask drivers to park in one of the inspection lanes — there are 13 of them at Windsor — before heading for the office.

“You can tell a lot about the truck by taking a quick look at it,” says inspector Jeff Richards, who has been on the job nearly two years. “It’s a sense. You get to know a book by its cover pretty quickly.”

The decision to conduct a CVSA Level 1 inspection is made at the booth, based on what the inspector notices during the walk-around. Brakes are an obvious target.

A CVSA Level 1 inspection will take about 45 minutes, and nothing has changed in that regard with the new facility.

Inside the office, the inspector runs the driver’s paperwork through the MTO’s Inquiry Services System (ISS). ISS is connected to the Internet so they can search various databases for relevant information, including out-of-province driver and carrier licence information.

MTO inspectors know everything about
you even before you approach the booth.

If violations are found, electronic records are created instantly and uploaded to the provincial records database, but nothing is final until a conviction is registered. When they’re done, drivers get a printout of the transaction — no longer a hand-written report. If they discover no out-of-service violations, drivers get the green light to go.

MTO District Enforcement Supervisor Jennie Thornton says that the facility layout was designed to provide the inspectors with a better opportunity to get closer to more trucks more often.

“We recognize that drivers have schedules, so we try to keep processing time to a minimum. At the same time we’ll be able to pick and choose more accurately who we want to inspect more closely,” she notes.

“Our inspection focus is shifting toward driver compliance, so expect us to look at driver logs more often. And equipment remains a priority in Ontario, so we’ll be checking the overall condition of the trucks at the triage booths more often too.”

Asked if the new inspection facilities are an improvement over the old-style scale building, Beneteau offered an emphatic yes.

“With the older buildings, we could only look at one side of the truck as it passed over the scale, and if we wanted to talk to the drivers, we had to stand out in the traffic, which had its thrilling moments,” he says. “Overall, we’re pretty happy with the design of the new facilities, but we’re discovering little bugs in the plan, too. These are a work in progress.”

MTO has no concrete plans to open any new-style inspection facilities elsewhere in the province, but Beneteau says there have been whispers about a westbound scale at Lancaster — near the Ontario-Quebec border on Highway 401. The new facilities aren’t cheap, but they do offer inspectors a better opportunity to conduct enforcement activities where they’re needed most.

If you’re one of the good guys, this should come as a welcome change from the arbitrary nature of the old process. If you’re, well, otherwise, we hear the words of the late, Al Palladini, a former Minister of Transportation in Ontario, echoing across the inspection lanes, “be afraid, be very afraid.”