On the same day a commercial truck in Abbotsford blew a tire, veered into a highway overpass and burst into flames, police in Burnaby were conducting a commercial vehicle enforcement blitz and took multiple trucks off the road for “compromised tires.”
Burnaby RCMP and other policing partners were set up at the bottom of Cariboo Road near the Highway 1 overpass between 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday and by Lougheed Highway and Phillips Avenue between 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Over the past two days we were out conducting #CMVSafety inspections with our #LMDCVE partners in #Burnaby. Of the 48 🚛 we inspected 30 were found to be unfit for the roadway and placed out of service with 43 tickets issued #RoadSafety #OOS pic.twitter.com/OtPPI2y0aB
— Burnaby RCMP (@BurnabyRCMP) May 30, 2023
They pulled over 48 commercial trucks and took 30 out of service for safety violations – 11 were "tire related" infractions, according to Const. Kevin Connolly, who heads up Burnaby RCMP’s commercial vehicle enforcement efforts.
“They were in a state that could explode any time,” Connolly said of the bald and damaged tires he found on some of the trucks.
One particularly egregious case was a truck pulling a trailer loaded with a “very large excavator.”
The unit was 3,900 kilograms over its insured weight; the excavator was not properly secured; and the trailer’s breakaway chain and emergency brake weren’t functioning, according to Connolly.
To top it off, all four tires on the truck were bald, he said, and two of the four trailer tires were “fully compromised.”
“All it would take is a little jab,” he said.
All of the problems found by police should have been caught by the driver during a pre-trip inspection, according to Connolly.
“They chose not to do that,” he said. “We cannot stress enough the importance of doing that pre-trip inspection and doing it honestly.”
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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