City Pushes for Truck Safety Inspections : Moorpark: Bill’s authors hope they can make it acceptable to industry and the CHP. The measure would allow deputies to check big rigs.

They roar through Moorpark every hour, rattling shop windows and the nerves of residents.

Hundreds of trucks, dodging a mandatory inspection station on the Ventura Freeway, use California 118 instead as it runs through the city’s streets. In the past month, one tractor-trailer lost its brakes and rammed into the back of a car. Another dropped its back axle.

For years, local politicians have tried to use state legislation to curb the number of trucks rolling through town, but each time a bill has gone up to Sacramento, it has been run over by opponents upset about locals meddling in interstate trucking.

Now the authors of a new state bill are hoping that some last-minute tinkering will make the measure a bit more palatable to the trucking industry and the California Highway Patrol.

The legislation, sponsored by Assemblyman Nao Takasugi (R-Oxnard) and drafted by local Moorpark officials, would allow sheriff’s deputies in Moorpark to perform safety inspections and issue tickets to trucks that use the 118 to avoid the inspection station atop the Conejo Grade.

This is the third time in five years that such a law has been brought to the Legislature.

So far, the bills have failed because of sharp criticism from truckers and the CHP.

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The CHP, which has sole authority for truck inspections on state highways, is concerned about a local agency conducting inspections of interstate trucking. It also worries that the precedent could jeopardize federal funding for the highway.

And truckers are worried that the city is just after their money and would use its ticket-issuing powers to go after big rigs.

But City Councilman Patrick Hunter, who has worked on the bill with Takasugi for several months, said those concerns can be easily addressed before the bill heads to committee, perhaps in the next two weeks.

“This is really about safety,” he said. “We’re not going to be collecting fines any differently, so truckers who obey the law have nothing to worry about. And we’re working with the CHP.”

California 118 carries trucks two miles through downtown Moorpark and then onto a two-lane road to Saticoy. The constant city traffic and truck accidents, like the two in the past month, have kept the issue in the forefront of local concern.

“I think a truck inspection would have stopped both of those accidents from happening,” Hunter said.

More than 37,000 cars and trucks travel through Moorpark every day, according to traffic studies. And while local law enforcement officials could not cite the number of trucks coming through the city, they said trucks make up a large percentage of the traffic.

In addition, the number of trucks using the road has increased since completion of the Simi Valley Freeway connector, said Lt. Martin Rouse, who heads up the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department’s Moorpark division.

Existing law permits deputies to pull trucks over for traffic violations and then conduct safety inspections.

“We’re pulling over about three a day,” Rouse said. “But a lot of safety violations you just can’t see.”

Only the CHP can conduct random inspections. When CHP inspectors set up outside of Moorpark more than a year ago, officers found that about 60% of the big rigs had serious safety violations.

CHP officers continue to do some random safety inspections on the 118 outside Moorpark, but they have said they are spread too thin to do more.

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Eleven officers now cover the Conejo Grade inspection station and conduct random safety inspections on California 118 and 126.

Still, CHP officials in Sacramento are cold to the idea of getting help and allowing local deputies to conduct inspections. Not only could the move jeopardize federal funds for the highway, but it could open the door to local authorities elsewhere trying to inspect and issue tickets to unsafe trucks.

The authors of the Moorpark bill are hoping to draft legislation that would clearly limit local truck inspections to Moorpark and thereby alleviate some of the CHP’s concerns. They are also asking that the CHP be involved in training deputies to ensure consistent enforcement.