* Minnesota - When big rigs push past the safety rules
... Millions of large trucks crisscross state and federal highways every day, hauling billions of tons of goods from factories, fields and warehouses. Federal and state regulations govern truckers’ driving hours, equipment maintenance and load sizes, but enforcement of those rules through surprise roadside inspections has been falling nationally... The weigh stations that dot the highway system are equipped to inspect just a small fraction of the trucks that pass through. Last year, for example, 433,078 vehicles went through a Minnesota weigh station on Interstate 94 while it was open. About 3,800 were inspected... Studies vary on who is typically at fault when trucks and other vehicles collide. Trucking industry leaders point to studies showing that passenger vehicles are overwhelmingly responsible for crashes. But in a national Large Truck Crash Causation study, looking at fatal and injury crashes in the early 2000s, trucks were assigned the “critical reason” — why something happened to make a crash inevitable — in 44 percent of such collisions. And in those crashes, 87 percent were attributed to driver error and 10 percent to a vehicle defect...
(Photo by Renee Jones Schneider - Commercial vehicle inspector Tony Kasella works at the desk monitoring trucks that drove through the St. Croix weigh station in Minneapolis, Minn) -- Minneapolis, MINN, USA - The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)/AZ Daily Sun, by PAM LOUWAGIE - September 15, 2015 Labels: rules and regulations, truck safety
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