FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October
6, 2005
Don’t cut on-road
truck safety enforcement, union warns McGuinty
TORONTO – The union
representing Ontario’s Transportation Enforcement Officers (TEOs)
is warning Premier Dalton McGuinty not to cut on-road
inspections of commercial vehicles.
The union issued the warning in
response to a Ministry of Transportation “program review,”
announced yesterday, that the Ministry says will “refocus
program emphasis from a primarily on-road presence to a more
balanced approach between on-road inspection and off-road
audit activities.”
“Obviously, we support any move
to increase the number of audits of trucking firms the
Ministry conducts each year,” said John O’Brien, northwestern
regional vice-president of the Ontario Public Service
Employees Union. “However, with 70 unfilled vacancies for TEOs
across the province, any further reductions pose a serious
threat to road user safety. Ontario needs more roadside
inspections and highway patrols to catch unsafe trucks, not
fewer.”
Roadside inspections play a
central role in the audit process, O’Brien said.
“The Commercial Vehicle
Inspection Reports that come from our officers on the road are
a vital source of information for those of us who conduct
audits,” he said. “Inspections catch violations that audits
can’t. They are our main method of policing out-of-province
trucking firms, catching unregistered vehicles, and
identifying companies that need to be audited.”
The sheer number of trucking
firms in Ontario is another reason why roadside inspections
and highway patrols need to be increased, not reduced, said
O’Brien.
“There are tens of thousands of
trucking companies in this province,” he said. “My estimate is
that, with the staff we have assigned right now, we probably
do about 1,400 audits a year.”
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For more information:
John O’Brien: (807)
628-4364 (cell)
Joe Daniel: (416) 845-6849 (cell)
