Dozens of vehicles pulled from the road in Abbotsford road safety blitz

Police and partner agencies were out in full force as they held a major commercial vehicle safety blitz in Abbotsford, B.C., on Tuesday.

Abbotsford officers were joined by police from across the Lower Mainland, including Vancouver, Surrey, Burnaby and Delta, as well as members of the Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement branch.

In total, 40 officers were at Marshall Road near Mount Lehman, inspecting vehicles.

2:05 New numbers cast doubts on safety of commercial trucks in Metro Vancouver

“We take this stuff seriously,” Abbotsford police Const. Scott McLure told Global News.

“We need to make sure when that vehicle leaves the yard it’s leaving safely and we don’t have to worry about causing a fatal collision anywhere between here and Arizona, going down into Mexico.”

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Problems range from improperly-secured loads to problems with lights to serious mechanical defects.

McLure said many drivers are caught with a minor problem that can be fixed by the driver on the roadside, or quickly repaired on-site by calling in a mechanic.

But he said there is no shortage of problems serious enough that they require vehicles to be towed away.

“Statistically we have about a 66 per cent out-of-service rate, so what that means is that we are finding issues that need to be resolved before the vehicle can be put back on the road,” he said.

“It’s not one thing specifically we are seeing, we are just seeing a wide variety of carelessness on the part of maybe drivers, maybe companies, maybe managers.”

2:18 More safety training for truckers, upgrades on B.C. highway infrastructure needed

Out of 87 inspections completed Tuesday, officers identified 268 violations, including 70 that met the “out of service” criteria.

Earlier this month, Burnaby RCMP revealed troubling statistics from enforcement its officers spearheaded in 2023.

Of the more than 1,700 trucks inspected, 999 (58 per cent) were placed “out of service.” Officers observed nearly 4,000 violations and issued just under 1,300 tickets.

Tuesday’s blitz came as the province ratchets up its road safety enforcement efforts in the wake of dozens of overpass strikes involving commercial vehicles.

Last week, the province cancelled the fleet licence of a B.C. company whose trucks had been involved in six overpass strikes in recent years.