CHP Brass Lead Big-Rig Sweep

The Highway Patrol deployed a strike force of 150 officers, including the chief and other top brass from its headquarters, in a predawn crackdown Tuesday on dangerous truck drivers.

The unannounced action marked the second time in seven months that the CHP has targeted truckers for special attention in a campaign to reduce the stubborn toll of truck crashes that kill and injure Californians.

The sweep occurred on roadways throughout Northern California, but was concentrated most heavily in the Bay Area and Sacramento. Similar enforcement actions are expected soon in Southern California, officials said.

“This is our highest priority,” CHP Commissioner D.O. “Spike” Helmick said as his top executives and about 50 rank and file officers in Sacramento climbed into fleets of black and white cruisers, special white truck chasers, airplanes and pickup trucks. Another 70 participated in the Bay Area.

By midday, the CHP said officers in the Sacramento region had issued 246 tickets for moving violations, including 147 for speeding and 89 for mechanical problems. Twenty-four trucks were immediately grounded for safety reasons. Verbal warnings were given to 110 drivers. In the Bay Area, officers wrote 223 citations, but did not break down categories of violations.

The sweeps have been supported by the California Trucking Assn., a trade group that represents 2,500 truck companies, as an important step in improving the safety of truck operators and other motorists.

The first daylong crackdown against errant big-rig operators was launched statewide in June and involved about 1,500 officers. But it did not include road patrols by executives from the CHP headquarters.

Shifting his top deputies from their desks to behind-the-wheel patrols, Helmick said, was intended to demonstrate the CHP’s commitment to making California highways safer.

In 2000, truckers were found at fault in the deaths of 134 people and in the injuries of another 6,280, according to CHP records. During the first six months of last year--the latest period for which figures were available--truck drivers were at fault in the deaths of 60 people and injuries to 2,834 others.

Trucks were involved in 412 highway deaths in 2000, records show, and were involved in injuries to 12,896 people. In the first six months of 2001, trucks were involved in 187 deaths and 6,189 injuries.

Helmick riled truckers earlier this month when he denounced unsafe truck operators as life-threatening “clowns.” He said he made a distinction between these and what he described as the “vast majority” of responsible drivers. On Tuesday, he told his officers that he was “getting beat up quite badly” by trucking industry publications, which criticized his “clown” remark.

Helmick said he was especially disturbed by a major collision on Interstate 5 near Sacramento during December in which a young couple and their infant daughter were killed in a crash with a truck. “There is absolutely no reason for this,” he said.

As the officers fanned out, some of Helmick’s executives, most of them up-from-the-ranks officers, encountered surprises.

In one case, an irate truck driver, who had just been stopped for speeding on California Highway 50 east of the capital, swung down from his cab and charged at Valley Division Assistant Chief John Rolin and his partner, Sgt. Matt Polanco. “He was screaming mad about being pulled over,” Rolin said.

Rolin, who has not been on a road patrol for about 10 years, said he and Polanco tensed up for a potential fight with the 6-foot, 250-pound trucker, but Polanco managed to calm him without incident. The man accepted his ticket, apologized and walked away, criticizing his own stupidity.

Along a stretch of Interstate 5 south of Sacramento, the site of some of the state’s worst truck-involved accidents, Helmick and Officer Kedren Emery pulled over a speeding 18-wheeler that was hauling a load of lumber in commuter traffic.

At first, the driver fumbled in the cab in an apparent attempt to hide a speeding ticket that had been issued to him 11 days earlier at virtually the same spot in the same truck, Helmick said. Then he handed the citation to the commissioner.

“This is going to cost him a couple hundred dollars,” Helmick said. “The message isn’t getting through.”

Later, Emery and Helmick stopped a new compact car for failing to display a temporary registration document. The driver, Sheila Holloman of Stockton, seemed stunned at being stopped but eager to get on her way.

Helmick let her go with a warning, but asked where she was headed.

“I’m going to Sacramento to take my peace officer test,” Holloman told the commissioner.

She asked for help in locating the examination site. Helmick gave her directions and wished her well in a law enforcement career.