A report on a Houston television station is causing furor in the trucking community.

The report, which anchors at ABC affiliate KTRK Channel 13 identified as a new regular, weekly feature, shows what anchors call “random” truck inspections, with the head of the Houston Police’s truck enforcement division, Sgt. C.J. Klausner.

Before footage of Klausner, one of the anchors says that every two hours there is an accident involving big rigs on Houston roads – and that many of those are “because of a faulty truck or an overworked driver.”

The report itself shows a series of short, fast-moving clips of Klausner showing badly secured loads, which he said were a “danger because of reckless operators,” as well as other violations.

“It’s about all the 18-wheelers you see going by,” Klausner says during the report.

“One out of every two of those trucks are so dangerous that they must – it’s not a suggestion – they must be shut down under federal law.”

The second anchor ends the report by saying, “Go get ’em, Sergeant.”

The report generated several calls to OOIDA’s offices, and considerable discussion on some Internet trucking forums.

One OOIDA member, John McReynolds of Henry, VA, said it wasn’t the inspections or the report that upset him – it was Sgt. Klausner’s statements.

During the report, Klausner said that one out of every two trucks should not be on the road because they wouldn’t meet federal safety standards.

“I have no problem with the DOT checks,” he said. “We need the DOT to be our friends again and show us when things are not correct. But their statistics were totally wrong. And that makes us all look bad.”

“The trucks they did have pulled over were really out of bounds; they really needed to be stopped and pulled over,” McReynolds said. “I work very hard to make sure my truck is very well maintained. I have 1,215,000 miles on my truck; I put every one of them on myself, and I’ll pull into any DOT check any time, because I make sure it’s up to par.

“I work hard to do that. Then to tell the general public that my truck is not a good truck is not fair.”  

– By Mark H. Reddig, associate editor
mark_reddig@landlinemag.com