Enforcement officers with the state Department of Motor Vehicles are spending three days emphasizing the rules of the road to drivers in Connecticut as part of the national “Roadcheck” Program.
Officers are focused on traffic, weight and mechanical violations for tractor-trailers and buses.
DMV officers work in conjunction with state police to enforce the violations and conduct spot checks to ensure the brakes and lights function properly, the system for securing a load stays in place and the driver has been keeping adequate logs and taking sleep breaks.
"I have seen everything from a tractor-trailer having 10 brakes and only three of them working, improper load securement, steering units ready to fall off, break apart, broken frames -- you name it," Sergeant Abraham Rosario, of the state DMV commercial vehicle safety division, said.
State law also requires commercial vehicles to stop at weigh stations to make sure they are not overweight.
"The overweight trucks are what tend to destroy the roadbed and cause the cracks and breaks and everything else," Lt. Donald Bridge, of the CT DMV Commercial Vehicle Safety Division, said.
In addition to protecting the infrastructure, officers are trying to prevent accidents through ticketing drivers for speeding, swerving, failure to signal and using cell phones.
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"These things are the things that we are preventing on a daily basis and, in my eyes, we are saving lives doing that kind of stuff," Rosario said.
"At the end of the day, we want to make sure everybody gets home safely and our goal is to reduce the number of accidents with commercial vehicles," Bridge said.
The three-day enforcement runs from June 7 to 9, but officers conduct this work year-round.
