READING, Pa.- A multi-agency commercial vehicle safety inspection took place at Schlegel Park in Reading Tuesday morning. Officials say it’s all in the name of keeping the roadways safe.
“This is about safety,” said Deputy Chief Aaron Demko, of the Reading Police Department. “It’s about road safety, and you know we’re dealing with so many vehicles; the general public might not see it, but we as the police see some very unsafe situations involving commercial vehicles.”
Law enforcement directed commercial vehicles from Lancaster Ave. into the park for the inspection process.
“We’ll ensure the vehicles are inspected and registered properly,” Demko said. “We’ll make sure that they have the correct insurance on them, and we check the driver logs.”
He said exceeding weight limit and proper load securement is always a thing.
“We do encounter vehicles operating using off road diesel,” Demko said. “The Pennsylvania DEP comes in and assists us with these, and they’ll check tanks, and if that’s a violation that they find they’ll take appropriate action on their end as well.”
An estimated 150 trucks came through, 21 inspections were done, 61 violations resulted in citations, 10 commercial vehicles were placed out of service and five drivers were taken out of service due to violations.
“Our goal is not to ruin anyone’s day,” Demko said. “Our goal is not to make things difficult for the businesses that operate these trucks.”
“We don’t want to do that,” he added. “We just want people to comply with the law for overall safety.”
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