Lee Carter is already an hour and a half behind on his canned vegetable and fruit run. So the trucker coming from Charleston, South Carolina, on his way to Greencastle, Pennsylvania, takes this attitude about the 45 minutes it will take Trooper Russell Taylor to inspect his rig at the Halifax County weigh station: “They have a job to do to keep us safe, make sure our trucks are in good shape so we can run it down the road. We get this from time to time.”

Not all truckers share Carter’s view, said Taylor, a state Highway Patrol trooper with its Motor Carrier Enforcement Administration Section. The ones who don’t are mainly the ones who know they’ve got violations.

This is Taylor’s world, one with creepers, portable scales and other equipment packed in a black and silver Tahoe to enforce motor carrier laws on the interstate, highways and roadways in the four counties assigned to him.

All the same

His all black uniform, made for crawling under trailers and getting dirty from inspecting brake hoses, fuel lines and tires, has the same Highway Patrol patch the traditional troopers do. When he goes to court he has to wear the traditional gray and black uniform.

“We’re all the same,” he says as he begins his patrol Thursday on Highway 301 in Weldon. “We’re a special branch like the helicopter and motorcycle (troopers). Troopers like myself get special training. It ranges from small trucks to big trucks.”

It is a complicated area of the patrol where citations are often civil instead of criminal and many times the company, not the driver, is cited.

It is an area of the patrol where the trooper must make quick judgment calls after observing permit decals, tires and other factors to determine whether to stop a truck.

He has ways of observing a moving tractor trailer that tell him the rig is overweight. “Weight is important. It puts a strain on the mechanics of the truck. When you exceed weight capacity you start running into failure. When you add extra weight, over time it breaks a truck down.”

One of the best ways to tell if a truck is overloaded is to look at the tires. “You look at the tires to see if there are any bulges.”

Some trucks are purposefully overloaded, some by mistake, Taylor says.

The toll overloaded trucks cause may not only be seen through crashes and breakdowns but at the weigh station itself. “If you look at the truck stop, it wears a pattern in the road. DOT (the state Department of Transportation) is going constantly to maintain the road.”

Whether it is checking for overweight vehicles, fatigued drivers or faulty equipment, everything the Weldon native and Halifax Academy graduate does is about protecting the truckers and motorists on area roadways, the 16 year veteran of the Highway Patrol and what was Division of Motor Vehicle enforcement, says.

The best of both worlds

His interest in law enforcement began as a boy but it wouldn’t be until 1994 he got into it. He had two other interests he would try first — forestry and the hog business.

He worked in his other interest areas first. He has a two year forestry degree and worked as a timber cruiser, selling timber for private forestry. “It was really wanting to try all out and seeing what best fit.”

There was always an interest in trucks and trucking laws, however. “I would ride my bike to where we’re sitting,” he said of the portion of Highway 301 in Weldon which southbound leads to Halifax and northbound leads to Northampton County. “It was when officers were there performing their duties and seeing them in action. It was ironic, some of the ones I saw I worked with in the later portion of their careers.”

In 2002 DMV merged with the Highway Patrol and Taylor became a trooper. “With my job there is so much diversity, weighing and inspecting and I can enforce regular motor vehicle laws. It’s the best of both worlds.”

This Thursday morning is the third day of a 72 hour operation called Road Check 2010. “We’re concentrating on safety violations of commercial motor vehicles. One of the main things the Motor Carrier troopers are doing is level one full inspections, covering from bumper to bumper,” Taylor says.

Possibly saving a life

Taylor remembers about four or five years ago when a bulldozer track fell off a rig onto the interstate. “Luckily, nobody hit it. That is a prime example of load security.”

Because of the danger it posed, Taylor blocked the travel lane with his vehicle and he and the truck driver from which the track fell worked to get the metal track from the highway. The truck driver pulled it to the median to save someone from getting injured or killed.

While motor carrier violation fines are stiff — since April there have been more than $3 million in penalties assessed — it is not about fines, Taylor says.

“It’s not necessarily about giving someone a $2,000 citation. It’s getting (unsafe) trucks off the road. That’s the part all of us enjoy. We get so much benefit out of knowing we could have possibly saved a life.”

The weigh station

At the weigh station on Interstate 95 Trooper Sammy McKeel and Sergeant Mark Silveri are working.

McKeel, like Taylor, started with DMV. Silveri was a traditional trooper.

McKeel enjoys the work. “The pay is nice, a whole lot better. You have policies that guide you. The boundary lines are clearly defined.”

McKeel continues, “It’s a good job. I don’t foresee myself changing. It’s a thinking job. You’ve got multiple things you do.”

Silveri has enjoyed his job. “It’s been eye opening,” the sergeant said. “I wanted to expand my work base. It’s a lot more entailed than I thought it would be.”

The sergeant said troopers must keep up with constantly changing laws.

“You never have speed laws to change,” McKeel said. “Weight laws change.”

Taylor finishes his inspection on Carter’s truck and the driver is off to Pennsylvania.

Taylor found one violation and places a sticker on the rig which indicates the truck passed inspection. “It lets other troopers know it was inspected. It helps other troopers know the truck passed inspection so they can look for ones that aren’t in as good a shape as the one I stopped.”

Taylor’s shift is ending and he is asked about what motorists can do to help themselves and help the many truckers on the road.

“Stay out of the no zone,” Taylor says. “If you can’t see his side view mirrors he can’t see you. You need to give him room to operate. Their braking distance is more than a passenger car.”