WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Obama administration has your trucks in its crosshairs.

Through surprise inspections, full compliance reviews and unprecedented enforcement actions, the administration has issued as many imminent-hazard orders placing bus and truck companies out of service in the past two years as previous administrations did in the past 10.

It’s all part of Washington’s new war on highway danger, according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

"From Day One,” LaHood says, “I have pledged to put public safety above all else, and we will continue to take action when we see carriers placing passengers at risk.

"We continue using all of the tools at our disposal to get unsafe carriers off the road and hope that Congress will act on our proposal to provide us with the necessary authority to expand our safety oversight."

Between 2000 and 2009, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) issued 14 "imminent-hazard" orders, placing unsafe carriers out of service.

It’s not only trucks they’re after, either. Buses seem to be decidedly out of favor.

The Administration has doubled the number of bus inspections and safety reviews of the estimated 4,000 U.S. bus companies.

In addition to surprise inspections and record numbers of out of service orders being issued to bus operators, the DOT asked Congress to raise the penalty for operating a bus company illegally or without authority from $2,000 a day to $25,000 day per violation. 

— with files from Truckinginfo.com