SOUTH CAROLINA, USA — In the wake of Wednesday's truck accident that shut down I-95 North, questions arise about how trucks are inspected in the state and their overall safety.
According to Rick Todd, President and CEO of the South Carolina Trucking Association, every state, including South Carolina, expects both personal and commercial vehicles to be in safe operating condition, with licensed drivers behind the wheel.
"Every state expects the same thing, and that is for whether it's a car or a truck; they expect them to be in safe operating condition and for the driver to be licensed," Todd said.
He says the Federal Motor Carrier Administration within USDOT publishes and creates all regulations.
"Those regulations govern and spell out all the requirements for both the equipment and the drivers and the companies," Todd said.
Todd notes a transition from traditional weight stations to weigh-in-motion systems installed underneath interstate traffic. These systems, implemented in areas of highway capacity expansion like I-26 near Malfunction Junction, allow trucks to be regulated seamlessly.
"The driver going down the interstate will see a red or green light on a pole across the interstate or beside the road they will notify them green they can keep going if it's red that means they have to pull in and if they pull in they typically will weigh them or they may inspect them," Todd said.
"If they detect something, whether it's tires, breaks, lights, what have you during the inspection they note it, and of course that's uploaded to a federal database," he added.
Additionally, weigh-in-motion systems have a continuous improvement of technology in this regard.
"They have technology that can detect whether the breaks or hot or not, so technology continues to improve," Todd said.
Despite the thorough inspection processes, Todd mentions that trucks aren't inspected each time they enter a state, as this would impede commerce.