News

Semi-Safe

Continued from page 5

While the number of trucks on 225 and other area highways and streets is increasing, enforcement has taken a hit. After the law was passed in 1995 that enabled larger Harris County cities to form their own DOT units, five municipalities enrolled in training: Baytown, La Porte, Deer Park, Houston and Pasadena. Three years later, only Pasadena and La Porte remain active.

With others dropping out, Pasadena has no intention of letting the weigh station die. City spokesman Dave Benson says the legal department mulled a lawsuit against TxDOT, but has decided for the time being against it. "It's not real likely we'll pursue that avenue," Benson says, "just because it's pretty darn difficult to sue the state of Texas and win."

More likely is that Pasadena will try and avoid future bureaucratic pitfalls by building a station itself, though the expense would probably limit the facility to bare-bones dimensions. "We can come up with the money to build something," Benson says. "We'll have a place to pull trucks over and look at them. It'll do the job."

"All we want is a concrete pad somewhere," seconds officer Gary Delozier. "We don't want politics."

Politics may yet interfere with Delozier's work, however. TMTA's Findeisen says his group will aim to have DPS exert more control over municipal DOT units. "There needs to be something done at the legislative level for the Department of Public Safety to have some type of oversight, direction and control," he says.

Unless Pasadena's efforts are cut off at the knees, however, the DOT unit is unlikely to give an inch. "The law's still gonna get enforced," Robinson says. "There's plenty out there to keep us busy."

That's bad news for truckers like Luis Hernandez, who says he now avoids Highway 225 entirely if he can help it. "If my company asks me to haul a load towards La Porte on 225, I refuse," Hernandez says. "I will not go there, simply because the DOTs are there."

Hernandez says he simply can't afford to pay multiple fines for such minor shortcomings as brakes out of adjustment. He knows his trucks well enough to know that if he slams on the brakes, they'll stop, even if technically they don't measure up. "If they go with a ruler and measure it, they're gonna say it's out of adjustment," he says. "From my point of view, they're not out of adjustment."

He can't even get relief in the courts, where judges will sometimes give truckers a break and dismiss tickets. Not for brakes in Pasadena, though, at least ever since Judy Wren was killed in 1996. Wren was a longtime senior clerk in the Pasadena municipal court, and since her death, judges have been cracking down on trucks with brake problems. "How long are we gonna pay for this clerk?" Hernandez asks. "Are we all gonna be paying for the rest of our lives?"

"I think there should be a limit."

E-mail Bob Burtman at bob_burtman@houstonpress.com.

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