THUNDER BAY -- Though it may seem a bit puzzling, the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) maintains it has more luck taking unsafe transport trucks off provincial highways when inspection stations don't have regular operating hours.
Currently, provincial truck inspection stations — including a new $30-million facility on Highway 11-17 just east of Thunder Bay — are intentionally only open "intermittently," the MTO said.
"The advantage of using intermittent times is that non-compliant drivers are more likely to be brought into a truck inspection station if they don't know when it will be open," a ministry spokeswoman said in an email.
NDP MPP Lise Vaugeois argued last week that inspection stations should be open far more often. She said MTO's current approach seems counter-intuitive, since regular operating hours would presumably allow inspectors to check a higher volume of trucks.
Vaugeois (Thunder Bay-Superior North) noted that when occasional MTO heavy-truck inspection blitzes are conducted near Thunder Bay, they often result in several safety-related charges being laid under the Highway Traffic Act.
Those numbers would increase, Vaugeois believes, if trucks had to go through an inspection station each time they passed one.
Currently, heavy trucks are only required to pull into an inspection station when lights on a road-way sign board are flashing.
"If the flashing lights are not activated (MTO transportation officers) may be on area patrol," the ministry spokeswoman said.
The new station near Thunder Bay opened earlier this year. The ministry said it can't say how many unsafe trucks have been taken off the road at that station specifically because it "does not track outcomes by individual facilities."
Carl Clutchey is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter with the Chronicle-Journal
