This past week, Niagara Regional Police along with the MTO Commercial Vehicle Inspection Unit, conducted vehicle inspections along the Welland Canals Parkway in the City of St. Catharines with safety in mind for local residents.
Officer’s concentrated their efforts primarily on heavy commercial vehicles and contractor roofers and landscape vehicles operating in the city.
Over the course of the initiative 20 vehicles were given complete safety inspections to ensure they were mechanically fit to operate safely on the roadways, and to ensure their documentation was complete. Nine of those inspected were taken out-of-service by the MTO in order for repairs to be made.
Officers laid over 30 provincial offence notices for various offences including overweight violations, major and minor safety defects, including issues with vehicle braking systems.
One driver in particular, who had the wrong class of licence, was drawing a trailer with a load that was insecure, exceeded its payload capacity by over 2000kgs, had no independent braking system for the trailer, and was not equipped with functioning brake or signal lights.
Another driver was arrested and charged criminally with driving while being disqualified due to a previous impaired driving conviction. The company vehicle that he was operating was impounded for 45 days and the driver was released on a promise to appear.
A number of Provincial Offence Notices were issued to drivers who were operating heavy vehicles on Welland Canals Parkway in contravention of the “no truck route” prohibition for that roadway.
While the majority of operators and owners are fully compliant with the laws and regulations for the safe operation of their vehicles. It is the few in the industry, that operate unsafely endangering the residents of and visitors to the Niagara Region.
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