Houston Succeeds With Level I Inspections, Education
HOUSTON — A fiery Gulf Freeway crash ended the lives of a 38-year-old Houston man and his three young children last June. The driver of the tractor-trailer involved is serving 60 years in state prison for intoxicated manslaughter.
Before then, the Houston Police Department had been conducting Level II “walk around” inspections. Despite pulling over 7,069 commercial trucks “for cause” in 1999, and issuing more than 3,500 citations from January to June, officers had done little to quell the rate of accidents involving commercial vehicles.
Houston police officials decided it was time to field teams of truck safety specialists.
Four months earlier, an accident involving an 18-wheeler had killed four people.
After the first fatal crash, Councilman Carroll Robinson began lobbying for safer city roads. At the top of his agenda was strengthening the city's truck inspection protocol of periodic Level I federal safety inspections. His efforts contributed to the creation of a special enforcement unit.
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