The Truckers World by J. Peter Rothe, Pages 109-130
The Police guide to the Trucker
The Truckers Try To Gain Informal Control of the Inspection
Truck Inspection at the Municipal Level in Canada
Behind the Scenes of Municipal Enforcement
Police and Truckers Team up Against a Third Party
Comments on Other Oral Reports
The pages that I read were Chapter nine pages 109-130 titled Smokies Stopping Truckers. This chapter gives us insight as to how a Arizona State Trooper goes about finding truckers who are in violation of the law.
In the first section, the trooper named Phil talks about his background and the ways in which he picks out the trucks that he thinks will have some kind of violation. Phil talks about the fact that he was a former trucker and that he came from a trucking family. From there he ended up going into bus driving as an owner of the company. He then got tired of driving the bus around for twelve hours a day as a 45-year-old person. He also worried a lot about the other drivers and how they were performing so he sold the business to one of them and became a trooper.
Phil says that in order to pull over a truck he needs to have due cause. The things that he looks for are mud flaps that need to cover at least 70% of the tire, must be parallel to the truck, and made of anti-soil material to prevent wear from water and dirt. He also points out that looking at the mud flaps are an easy way to get into seeing other things wrong with the truck like the log book or the types of material that the truck is carrying.
Another thing that Phil looks for is the mixing of the use of yellow lights, and red taillights. Some truckers put a yellow light in the red tail light reflector to give it a unique color. Phil says that when this happens "Nine out of ten times, they will be over hours, gross falsification in the log book, or drugged." He also says that he can not believe the relationship between the yellow light violation and the falsification of logbooks.
Other forms of things that Phil looks for is speeding which is generally 6 miles over the speed limit, or any other kind of traffic violation. He doesn?t stick to the books on this law because being a former trucker he understands how they feel being "nickel and dimed" over speeding tickets.
The strategy that Phil is more prone to love is the improper placing of the place card, which shows what the truck is hauling. Over the past 5 years he has become the expert in this field and he is on 24-hour response call for this type of situation. 2 of Phil?s colleges died from cancer because of the inspections of hazardous material, but he feels that he takes sufficient precautions. The hazardous material is usually coming from Texas through Arizona to California. The place cards need to be straight, able to be read from left to right, it must be in the direction they face, The words and numbers must be level, and it must be at least 3 inches away from any other types of objects. One out of every ten loads is found to have an infraction of being improperly packet. The driver must repack it and clean up any spills that have occurred even if on the roadway. He says that he had a spill that cost $3,500 and the clean up person took 2 hours and 20 minutes to clean it.
Another thing that Phil looks for is "cosmetic trucks." These are the trucks with people?s name on the side of it with chrome sparklers, and other personalized modifications. These trucks are seen as those being in excess of $120,000 in cost. These trucks are seen as the trucker?s heart and soul, to keep up with the payments they will be surely driving in excess of the 10-hour limit.
On the other side there are the dirt beat up trucks which is a tip off for drug users. We saw this type of driver in the previous chapters.
Other trucks that Phil will stop are those that drive for a company with a bad reputation. He will find due cause to stop them and then do his inspections. Another type of truck that he will stop is a carnival driver. He said that they are lesser class drivers and one time he stopped 3 trucks and two of the drivers were wanted for drug related offenses.
The trucks that Phil won?t stop are the ones hauling live stock. Some times the cows will piss on him and inspections under the truck are nearly impossible because of the excrement.
I thought that this section was important for the truckers so that if they know what the troopers are looking for, then they can ovoid these things and not get stopped. This type of classification is what normal officers also have when the pull over regular cars on the street.
He says that sometimes truckers try to avoid being pulled over by knowing exactly what the troopers are looking for. Phil knows that something is wrong with the truck, but without due cause, he can not inspect it. The main way of not getting caught is by using the CB to warn others of the "danger zone" where the trooper is waiting. To combat this Phil and the other troopers form a "wolf pack." This is done by sending two troopers to the bypass roads and has them send the truckers back onto the main road so that they can be looked at. The truckers know about this type of corralling so they usually go to truck stops to wait it out which is fine with Phil who believes that he has just taken a tired trucker off the road.
For California Highway Patrol officers, they run into similar problems with truckers detouring roadblocks so they hire rovers who are normal people that watch out for truckers that are hiding in the bushes. When the officer gets a tip he happens to stumble upon the truck and finds something wrong with it and makes him wait there until it is fixed.
The truckers also know the patrol member?s schedule and will inform other truckers over the CB if anything has changed and will tease the patrolman.
The patrolman has thought of a lot of ways that truckers have tried to avoid them and have found ways to combat it. This is just like how a DUI stop is tried to be avoided.
The Police guide to the Trucker
Phil will flash his lights and tell the driver that he has a smoky or bear on his tail and he should pull over when it is safe. The response is usually "right," "Damn," or "Shit."
Phil then goes up to the truck and greets the driver and tells them the violation. He then inspects the exterior of the rig like tires lights etc.
On this day Phil stops a trucker carrying chlorine and was stopped because his sign on the truck was 1 and half inches from the commercial print and he told the driver to fix the problem or he would have to take the rig off the road. He then inspected the logbook thoroughly back at his car. After this was done, he fired quick questions to see if there was another logbook or drugs or liquor in the truck. The last question that Phil asks is, "If I were to search the cab, would I find anything hidden?" All truckers answer "No" because the possibility of the trooper searching is slim, and if they are going to search the answer tot he questions will not change the outcome.
By analyzing the logbook and the receipts that the driver has Phil can determine the miles traveled and the time it took to look for fraud. This driver was given a choice when Phil discovered that the logbook and the receipts were short 4 hours of driving. He gave the trucker a chance to come clean because he claimed that he was tired and miss logged some of the stops and times. Phil told him that if he told the guest researcher the real reason then he would let him off on a warning and not fine him $400 and a log book citation. The driver stuck to his story and got fined.
The next example was of truckers from the same company three days apart caught for drug possession. The owner, both times, had to go out and pick up his truck claiming that these two drivers were his best. Phil believes that a fatigued driver taking drugs is the most dangerous thing.
In this section we see the trooper in action and some situations that he has experienced and herd about. This is like when a officer pulls a driver over and does the same thing when they are suspected of either DUI or not having a license or insurance.
The Truckers Try To Gain Informal Control of the Inspection
The trucker doesn?t want to get an "out of service sticker" or a big fine and a citation so they try to use techniques to try to avoid this. One example is "glossing events," which is that both the trooper and the trucker know that a log book is as true as a comic book so the trucker gives excuses to why the log book doesn?t make sense like being tired or losing receipts etc. Phil feels that he is helping out the trucker because if the trucker gets into an accident the logbook can be brought into question to defend or contradict the testimony of the trucker.
Some truckers get to Phil because they are clean cut and friendly to him. An example was of Mayflower Moving truck. This driver was pleasant and had good appearance. Even though he was going 65 in a 60-MPH zone, Phil said that if the logbook checked out, he would let him off without a citation and without a warning.
Worst case scenario is to get arrested for drugs or get sidelined for repairs. The next intense sticker is a "restrictive repair sticker" which means that the driver can drive for 25 miles to the next service station to get the repairs done. This sticker is accompanied by a citation for driving the vehicle in a state of disappear.
Truckers in Arizona average about 13 citations per stop. If a company has multiple citations for there trucks then the company can be cited and not he driver as in the case of Flagstaff. They were cited 28 out of 30 trucks for mechanical violations.
Truck Inspection at the Municipal Level in Canada
In Vancouver they look for overweight and bad brakes trucks. They inspect trucks during accident stops. The example was of an accident that a truck hit a Honda and ripped the front end of it. The truck ran a red light and had minor scratches. The drive got a $75 fine and 2 demerit points, which gave him 10 for the year. This means that he would be suspended and his insurance rates would go up. He also didn?t have the proper sticker and permit to drive his truck in the city. The author noticed that the officer didn?t give out a citation for this only for running of the yellow light. This is very different then how it is done in America. The Canadian officer felt that by giving out a ticket and points for a lessor charge that the trucker would not fight it. Instead of having it drag out in court with the maximum penalty. The reason for not giving out multiple tickets to the driver was that by no stacking the tickets it increases their chances of getting help from the driver later on.
I found that the way that the Canadian police handle truckers was very different from the way that the American police do. The Canadian police are more forgiving and will let more things slide to obtain help from the truckers later on. I see this happening in traffic courts where a judge would let the defendant plead guilty for a lessor charge and in return drop the other charges against them.
Behind the Scenes of Municipal Enforcement
Canada Lacks truck inspection officers so truck drivers get away with a lot more illegal activity then in America. There was an incident of a truck blowing his horn going through an intersection to run a red light. Sam was at a accident scene and said that he couldn?t let the incident go so he ticketed the driver. This was a rare stop, but the driver tried to make up excuses for his actions and Sam kept countering back at him.
Municipal police are concerned with 3 major forms of violation, moving vehicle, brakes and truck maintenance, and overweight. They never concern themselves with length of time the driver has been driving this is the Mounties of Trans-Canada Highways job. Drugs are also non-existent in Canadian drivers.
This shows me that they are less strict then that of American officers. The part about drugs brings up a question of maybe they can?t distinguish between drug use in people.
Police and Truckers Team up Against a Third Party
Sometimes the drivers tip off police so that they can get caught with a overweight load or mechanical defects on their truck. Owner operators us complain about the weight of the load so that their truck doesn?t experience the wear and tear of carrying the load. Drivers who drive for big companies tell the officers that their rigs are in need of repair and to write up as much tickets as possible so that he can bring it back to the boss and demand that the repairs be made to save money.
This section talks about how the drivers and officers work together to fight the bosses. This is very important for the Canadian officers because this is how they make the roads a safer place with trust from the drivers.
The Last section just recaps the chapter and tells that Phil and Sam represent two different forms of law enforcement
A trooper can harass a trucker in many ways. The trooper can be very strict to the trucker by pulling him or her over for any reason that they can think of. Weather it is the way that a trucker is driving, or the way that the truck looks. If a trooper is thinking about unjustly harassing a trucker, the trooper would make up a reason to pull the trucker over. This would be done by finding something wrong with the way the trucker is driving. A trooper would do this if they saw that the truck is being operated in a unsafe manner, the reputation of the truck company is bad, or they suspect some illegal activity with the trucker.
How can we verify the observations by Rothe? How do we know the trooper truthfully represented his job?The only way to verify the observations by Rothe is to have another observer watch a trooper without the troopers knowledge that he or she is being watched. By observing a trooper in this way, we would also see if the trooper truthfully represented his job.
I think that this practice is fair to truckers because if a trucker has some minor flaws in his or her truck, then there is a possibility that there is something wrong with the driver or maybe the log-book. If a trucker doesn?t want to get harassed, then take care of the truck that is driven.
I feel profiling drivers and trucks is discriminatory although police officers would argue that it is a necessary tactic. What do you think?I think that this tactic is discriminatory towards people who are making major modifications to their car or truck. I also agree that this is necessary to watch certain cars and trucks to find a law violation. If a person modifies their car to make it go faster, there is a reason for this. Chances are that this person will be more prone to speed rather than a person with a four-cylinder car.
I think that both of them have very strong points of view. I also think that the smokies are just doing their job and upholding the law. If the truckers and the smokies were to always work together as seen in the way they help each other out when there is a dangerous trucker or car on the road, maybe there can be an understanding between the two. I think that the smokie is on the right side. Anyone that is looking out for the safety of others is always right.
Why do you think that truckers take the risks knowing that cops are around trying to uphold the law?I believe that truckers take risk to either get their load to its destination on time or to have a little risk in their lives. It is human nature to want to take risk and try not to get caught.
Will all the tickets that the truckers get affect their record?Yes. The truckers will have to pay higher insurance premiums and in some extreme cases have their license revoked.
Phil can search a truck if there is probable cause that he might find something. This is the same for all traffic stops where a officer thinks that there might be something illegal present in the car or truck like drugs or firearms.
Which system do you think is better Phil?s (US) or Sam?s (Canada)?I think that Phil?s system is better because it is more of a preventative system where a person is stopped before an accident occurs rather than Sam?s where he just shows up at the accident scene.
I believe that a officer should either stay strict or lenient all the time. If the officer is strict, then he or she should always be strict. If the officer is lenient, then he or she should always be lenient. If there is a mixing of both then biases and sterotypes come into play.
Why does the police officers or state trooper call or refer to themselves as smokies? A "smoky" must cannotate something. What do you think the cannotation of "smoky" is?
I think that the police call themselves "smoky" to give the impression to the cars and trucks on the road that they are fast. This name can suggest that no one can outrun them and that no one should try.
Comments On Other Oral Reports
This assignment is rather enjoying. Just as long as the person presenting reads the chapter over at least twice and understands the material to answer questions. Also, try to type out the presentation so that it is easier to post it later. No sense in doing double the work by writing it out and typing it later.
My Report3: Driver Communication