Albany, NY — A new video from the New York State Department of Transportation provides a behind-the-scenes look at the vital role that commercial vehicle inspection stations play in roadway safety.
“We’re looking at big, heavy trucks rolling down the roadway and making sure they’re safe,” Justin Coon of the NYSDOT commercial vehicle enforcement unit says in the two-minute video. “We are one of the first lines of defense to make sure these trucks are operating safely on the roadway.”
The video shows a station’s screening technology in action. The technology can read truck license plates as well as check the height and weight of CMVs. Coon also emphasizes the importance of visual examinations, during which inspectors walk underneath trucks in inspection pits.
“It’s crucial to inspect the underside of a commercial motor vehicle,” Coon says. “This is where all of the major safety components are: your brakes, your drivetrain, all of your air lines.”
The most rewarding part of his job, Coon says, is “actually getting thank-yous from the truck drivers when we find things that are wrong.”
To Coon, those exchanges help illustrate the vehicle inspector’s role.
“We have families traveling on the roadways just like everyone else, and we are consumers of all this product that all these truck drivers haul,” he said. “So, at the end of the day, we’re here to just make sure the trucks are trying to travel as safely as possible and to get the drivers home to their families, as well.”
