SUFFOLK
They chose a shady shoulder of Paper Mill Road, across from a field of flowering cotton, about halfway between a sharp bend in the road and the western tip of the city.
Aluminum scales went down. Orange cones went up. The mobile weigh station was ready for the groaning log trucks winding toward Southampton County and beyond.
“That sounds like one,” said Suffolk Police Lt. J.C. Patterson.
But it was a hog truck, and those can be hard to weigh, with the animals shifting around and occasionally relieving themselves on you. Patterson waved the driver on. He was not interested in weighing hogs .
“Here we go,” he said a moment later.
A truck with a shiny red cab and a back end laden with pine logs bellowed forward. It was barely 7:30 a.m. Monday. Patterson was about to write his first citation of the morning.
Commercial trucks fill Suffolk roadways – sometimes traveling by way of Interstate 664 or U.S. 58, sometimes on out-of-the-way roads like this . Sometimes, the latter routes are a driver’s most direct. And sometimes, Patterson said, they’re avoiding the weigh station.
They’re carrying oil and ice and potatoes and sod, chipped wood and turkeys and tar and concentrated orange juice. Damaged tires, faulty brakes and other defective equipment create safety hazards for drivers in this city of 430 square miles. Trucks exceeding weight limits crack and push concrete and wear holes into pavement that the city must pay to repair.
Except for mobile weight enforcement operations like the one Monday conducted with Department of Motor Vehicles equipment – there have been no more than a dozen in Suffolk so far this year – there is little enforcement.
“Basically, nobody has been doing this,” Patterson said. “These drivers have gotten away with everything.”
That will change this fall when the Suffolk Police Department begins its own weights and measures unit, which Patterson will be heading.
“There will be a lot of surprised people,” he said.
Two officers will devote 55 to 60 hours a week concentrating on some of the city’s most dangerous roadways: Nansemond Parkway, U.S. 58 and Gates Road, among others.
Twenty-six people died on Suffolk roads in 2007, according to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. Only one city in the state – Emporia – had a higher death rate per 1,000 licensed drivers. Suffolk police have said the problem is likely to get worse without major changes to roadway infrastructure.
The city is among the fastest-growing in South Hampton Roads. Yet it is one of the only cities without at least one person dedicated to commercial vehicle enforcement.
Virginia Beach has three; Chesapeake has a full-time and a part-time position that make up what is known as the Motor Carrier Enforcement Unit. Norfolk has a weights and measures unit but it is not run by the police department, said Chris Amos, spokesman.
In Suffolk, “we didn’t have the manpower to put towards it,” Patterson said.
Police instead have assisted DMV workers, using the department’s equipment to weigh and measure and inspect trucks. They went out 33 times in 2003, Patterson said, but enforcement scaled back in the years that followed.
The new Suffolk unit could be ready by October.
“It’s something that we’ve been talking about for a number of years,” Suffolk Budget Officer Anne Seward said. “We have a lot of major traffic going through our boundaries.”
The city budgeted $256,000 for the new unit to cover salaries for the two new positions as well as equipment, which includes 14 scales, a computer and a van to haul it all in.
Seward said Suffolk hopes to make enough in fines to cover the costs.
A mobile operation last week netted 11 overweight citations and a dozen traffic summonses for violations such as defective equipment and missing operator’s licenses. The single day’s work could bring in more than $9,000.
“If I can take a truck off the road with faulty equipment that could potentially kill somebody,” Patterson said, “that’s worth more to me than liquidated damages.”
Patterson’s first log truck Monday – the one with the shiny red cab – was 2,100 pounds overweight, a violation that could cost the driver more than $200. A DMV technician wrote up a citation.
Patterson walked around the truck, the smell of diesel mixing with sap from the fresh-cut pines. Two straps held the logs tightly in place. Bolts and springs were intact. Tires were in decent shape.
The truck looked safe enough.
Kristin Davis, (757) 222-5555, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com
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Laws That Have Meaning?
What laws have meaning to you that you think the police should selectively enforce?
location
It seems strange to me that the place that they set up shop to weigh is within site of the city/county line and only a few feet from unloading.
Why do they discriminate on what they are to weigh? This is another prime example of how to make money. It goes into the general fund and council spends at will, without regard.
Why pick on paper mill rd, go to Pittmantown Rd. There you will find trucks on a low weight road, Why not enforce laws that have meaning.
Why not weigh the pigs?
The comment that the police officers would only weigh some trucks and wave others on, seems to be a problem. I am strongly in favor of enforcing these laws, but would demand that they do so without bias and completely. I am also concerned that we use this program as an enforcement tool, not a budget builder as the Suffolk Budget Officer indicated in the article and at the recent Council Meeting. While she may be interested in our MONEY, this issue must focus on enforcing our laws in a fair and consistent manner as the first priority!
By all means get the violators off the roads or into compliance, but do so in both a fair and reasonable manner that makes sense...
Unsafe trucks
Trucks without covered loads dropping stuff on the highways. Trucks without proper signal lights. And yes, trucks driving overweight damaging our highways even further. POVs don't tear up the highways the way overweight vehicles do. If drivers would take care of their vehicles and not drive overweight, the highways would be safer for everyone and our roads wouldn't be in as bad of shape as they are. Thank goodness we do have units like this checking them.
Get the facts straight !
No one is robbing the poor truck driver. The poor truck driver is taking money out of your pocket when the overloaded truck tears up your road causing you to have to get your front end aligned, new tires, more tax money to repair the roads, etc.
Haul within the the legal limits and you have no problem. He gets caught one maybe 1 in about 50 loads.
Anyway, weight tickets go to the company and does not effect the driver unless he is the company.
Solution, load the truck legal, keep up the equipment and you have nothing to worry about.
Problems
Problem. Over-weight trucks cause more damage to the roads.
Problem. Over-weight trucks are in more accidents as the vehicle cannot handle the extra weight.
Problem. Many drivers of these trucks are not properly license with CDL's.
Problems. These trucks are in accidents that could be prevented if the drivers obeyed the law.
Answer, setup check points to prevent breaking the law. If you don't break the law, you have nothing to worry about. Don't like the law, get your representative to change it.
money well spent
This has been a BIG problem for a very long time. Just the "scale dodging" truck traffic alone was reason enough to do this 15 years ago. But I understand the lack of personell being an issue. Gates Road isn't as big a problem due to the lack of local traffic. Now Nansemond Parkway, that's another story. Good job to the administration at the SPD for putting forth efforts to squash the few who make a living of operating over-loaded, mechanically defective big trucks on the highways and secondary roads. Now if we could only get them to stop running the light at the west end of the bypass. GREAT place for a traffic signal light camera!!
Where's The Cash??
Why are trucks once again being ask to share even more of their dwindling slice of the pie?
The real flavor of the article was not about safety. It is about how much revenue can be generated from an already over worked, underpaid truck driver. I do not dispute that there are "hot dog" drivers and trucks that need some maintenance on the road. I do dispute the pocket being dug into for more revenue.
If the worry is vehicle weight, levy personal vehicles by size/weight. How insane is it to stop a working person (truck driver) and dip in their (almost empty) pockets when you have inexperienced drivers in "four-wheelers" driving vehicles far larger than they can drive or park, burning gas without any regard, with no insurance, in unsafe vehicles with little or no maintenance.
If you are looking to hand out tickets, your "friendly" neighborhood streets will prove far more lucrative and take far more unsafe drivers and vehicles off the road.
Wait... I may have just thought of the answer!
"Class C" drivers would never hold still for the scrutiny "Class A" drivers are subjected to daily.
10/4?
What About Hosier Road?
The police need to put one of these checkpoints on Hosier Road near that metal recycling plant. I have observed numerous trailers with non-functioning brake and signal lights and heavily overloaded with improperly secured metal on their way or leaving the recycling plant. These drivers routinely cut in front of oncoming traffic and flip you off if you blow the horn at them. Their blatant disregard for the rules of the road needs to stop. Also, drivers routinely consider Hosier Road to be their own personal race track. I have called the police numerous times but never see enforcement on this road.