NORTH BAY, ONT — Truckers using the Trans Canada through Northern Ontario should keep their Spidey sense on high over the next nine months as the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO) step up their commercial vehicle enforcement.

It’s the 14th year in a row that the two organizations worked together to target non-compliant buses and trucks and this year, they’re buckling down on unbuckled seatbelts.

According to the cops, more than a million drivers and passengers still fail to buckle up; and these unbelted folks account for more than 25 percent of all MVA fatalities in Ontario.

The OPP and MTO will also be looking for your standard safety-related defects such as brakes, steering and suspension components, tires and wheels, and insecure loads.

About 256,000 trucks and 31,000 buses are registered in Ontario. But combine that with out-of-province drivers, and the target of this crackdown comprises about 569,000 commercial vehicle drivers.

Despite the numbers, though, less than 19 percent of those killed on Ontario roads in 2006 were killed in collisions involving large trucks.

The North East Region stretches from Parry Sound to Burks Falls in the south to Moosonee and Hearst in the North and from Mattawa to White River in the west.