Double standards on vehicle checks Rural Ramblings

A release by the Alberta Government caught my eye this week. There is a new commercial vehicle inspection station on Highway 63 that cost around $11 million.

It’s a busy highway. Inspectors will be checking commercial vehicles and if the vehicle doesn’t meet standards it will be taken off the road and fines issued, some of them substantial no doubt.

Some unsafe vehicles and operators will be hit hard. Lives may be saved. Other operators will be fuming about delays and maybe fines for minor faults might make owners and drivers see red.

In another career, in another country as part of my business operation I ran a fleet of commercial vehicles. Even back in the 80s and 90s regulations were tight. One really had to keep things tight and even then, a miscalculation by a driver on the weight or a fault developed on the road that was unknown to us cost us dear. Never were we unsafe. And, fortunately, never were we fined.

What cost us dear was time. A couple of times we had to get another vehicle to the station to transfer its load while a minor fault was fixed. I knew other operators that got hit hard depending on the mood of the inspectors. One guy even took to beating the hell out our truck’s sub frame with a hammer to try and prove it was defective. It wasn’t.

Some may say commercial vehicle inspection stations are a cash cow for the government. Some may not. I do think in Alberta and probably across the country, as different provinces have different regulations, that there is need for change. I’ve looked at a lot of older vehicles that look more rust than anything else and wonder how they are allowed on the road.

I’m from the UK. And, for years there has been something called an MOT test. It stands for Ministry of Transport and although there have been some dodgy practices, by and large the system has stuck.

Currently in the UK once your vehicle is three years old it requires an annual inspection for an MOT certificate. No MOT, no insurance, no registration, you’re illegal, that’s it. There is talk about extending the period to four years, a while back I seem to recall it was five. The test is stringent, and people have and will make judgment calls as to whether a repair is viable. Older vehicles get taken off the road, period.

I know in Alberta that insurance companies require inspections for older vehicles, but the system doesn’t seem to be consistent. Only government can do this and to be honest it should be country wide. If you have an old classic vehicle that rarely goes on the road there can be exceptions. I’m willing to bet that if the statistics were available we may see more injuries and deaths occurring with unsafe private vehicles than with commercial ones but I’m willing to be surprised if the numbers are out there.