Laptops new tool in assessing truck safety

Authorities inspecting trucks on Maine roads soon will have a valuable new tool in determining the safety record of commercial truckers and their rigs, safety officials say.

Roadside inspectors will be equipped with laptops that can instantly access an online national database of safety ratings for motor carriers.

The equipment will aid inspectors in focusing on trouble areas, spotting habitual offenders and nabbing recently suspended drivers. To date, civilian inspectors at the Department of Public Safety who perform safety checks on Maine roads often have had to rely on personal recall and outdated information for past violations of a trucker or truck company.

Some Maine State Police troopers who perform truck inspections now have access to an outmoded electronic device that allows them to tap into the federal database. That system will be replaced with this faster system that is expected to help inspectors bag more truck drivers whose commercial licenses are under suspension out of state, said state police Trooper Christopher Cyr.

Dispatchers do not have time to run license and registration checks on all truckers who are stopped, Cyr said.

The new system will allow police to bypass the dispatchers.

“There’s no question we probably will [identify illegal] drivers by a great amount,” he said.

Daphne Izer of Parents Against Tired Truckers, or PATT, a national watchdog of the commercial carrier industry, said it would be a huge boost for highway safety.

“There are companies not operating safely in Maine as we speak. We don’t want them on our roads, pure and simple,” said Izer, of Lisbon Falls.

The database linked to the computers is compiled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which researches four safety factors – accident records, driving records, vehicle inspection and safety compliance history – of registered motor carriers in all 50 states.

State police expect to have the new system installed and up and running by fall.