MIDLAND, Texas — It’s not hard to find commercial motor vehicles, or CMV's, in the Permian Basin with constant oilfield traffic. The Texas Department of Public Safety, or DPS, ran an operation in August in the Midland-Odessa area that brought in troopers from across the state to crack down on our roads.
DPS issued over 1,000 citations and nearly 3,000 warnings in three days, but they also focused on those commercial motor vehicles. 332 CMV’s were inspected, with almost half of them being deemed out of service and 35 drivers being taken out of service as well, showing that more work needs to be done.
It doesn’t take a state trooper to spot commercial motor vehicles in West Texas.
“The majority of truckers and folks involved in the freight industry are great," said James Beauchamp, President of the Midland-Odessa Transportation Alliance.
However, it does take a state trooper to spot their issues.
“Nearly half the vehicles that our troopers inspected found major violations, whereas the national average is around 20%, so we’re doubling the national average on the amount of unsafe vehicles that are on our roadways here in the Permian Basin," said Steven Blanco, Sergeant for the Texas Department of Public Safety in Midland.
Those major violations vary in creating CMV’s that are unsafe.
“They can range anywhere from light violations to brake violations to load-securement violations, so there’s a wide variety of safety-related violations that can remove a truck from the roadway," Sgt. Blanco said.
Beauchamp says those violations shouldn’t be taken lightly.
“To see essentially half of the trucks on the road out here getting pulled out of service for, not minor violations, but major violations is important -- particularly as we look, again, at about 38% of your fatalities involving a commercial motor vehicle," Beauchamp said. "We’ve got to step that up.”
With the data as evidence, those in charge of CMV’s must do a better job.
“Companies need to emphasize safety and equipment of their commercial vehicles, and also emphasize that their drivers have the correct types of licenses and are properly licensed when they’re operating those vehicles," Sgt. Blanco said.
While it takes DPS to find unsafe vehicles, every West Texan has a role on the road.
“It takes everybody, it takes compliance, it takes everybody being safety-minded – from the driver of a small F-150 all the way up to someone driving a large commercial vehicle weighing 80,000 pounds," Sgt. Blanco said. "We all have to share the roads, and we all have to drive safely and drive courteously on our roads here in the Permian Basin.”
Sgt. Blanco mentioned that during those CMV inspections, their troopers were able to educate those drivers and companies on what they need to do to put a safe vehicle on the road. He also noted that they continuously run operations to reduce crashes and deaths, as well as getting those unsafe vehicles off the road like they did during this operation.