County Peace Officers are trying to make roads in the Grande Prairie area safer for all users. A team of Regional Enforcement Services members will now be able to perform in-depth truck and bus inspections as part of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.
Regional Enforcement Services Manager Stuart Rempel says that while places like the City of Grande Prairie have been doing them for a number of years, this will be the first time in the County’s 42 year history that it will be doing them.
“My folks could always do the inspections, and in fact, we do inspect vehicles but we haven’t done it as part of that program. To actually pull a truck off the road into a site and crawl in and check the brakes to make sure all the brakes on a big truck are working, that’s something we haven’t done. We’ll walk around and we’ll check the visual things, the tires, the wheels but to actually crawl in and do formal inspections, we haven’t.”
CVSA inspections are done throughout Mexico, the United States and Canada. They are given by specially trained officers, three of which are currently working in the County.
Rempel says the checks would be done at scheduled times and officers would check a number of things in, above and below the vehicle.
“There are different types of the inspections from a walk around to the driver only but the most in-depth one is where they actually deal with the driver, the documents, the load itself and then the vehicle and safety equipment. They end it by going not only on top of the vehicle but underneath. They’re checking brakes, they’re checking the frame, the suspension, they’re looking at tires, tire separation and they’re applying the standard that is North American wide.”
If a problem with the vehicle is found, it may be marked as not road worthy. In that case, it would need to be fixed before it’s allowed back.
The pilot project will be reevaluated on December 31st to see whether it was successful enough to continue. If it is, Rempel says more officers may be trained in the future.