A one-day inspection blitz in Surrey on April 4 to look for truckers with safety violations and scrap-metal thieves turned up a number of unsafe vehicles and two car thieves.
"It was overwhelming," said Dave Berar, a commercial vehicle inspection officer for Surrey, which was the lead agency on the crackdown that involved about 50 officers from government and police at six sites in Bridgeview near the Pattullo Bridge.
The owner of a flatbed truck was pulled over for a safety check and was found to have only two lug nuts holding his rim on a rear tire instead of the necessary 10 - and one of them was loose enough for the inspector to remove with his hands. He was also transporting two unsecured propane tanks and a gas jerry can on the flatbed and the cab was full of car batteries.
"That was the worst one," said Berar. The final tally by the various agencies, including Surrey's commercial vehicle enforcement unit, B.C.'s Transportation Ministry, WorkSafe B.C. and various RCMP patrols and police officers from New Westminster, Delta and CN, won't be available for a few days.
"There were astronomical figures" in early tallies, said Berar. "We had a lot of roaming officers out there and a number of checkpoints so nobody could get away."
But that didn't stop one driver from trying. He got as far as New Westminster on the other side of the Pattullo Bridge, where police caught up with him and found out that his car was stolen. The other vehicle turned out to be stolen in 2009.
Surrey wrote 10 $200 bylaw-infraction tickets and more than 10 cars were towed away, said Berar.
The inspections sites were set up in an area where there are a number of scrap yards, one of which was shut down previously for dealing in stolen property, said Berar.
And inspectors, including one from Telus, which lost $17 million last year to metal and wire thefts, were looking for stolen metal and wire.
The driver of one truck loaded with wires and cables had his plates seized after it was determined he had failed to comply with an earlier 30-day order to repair his truck.
Telus spokesman Shawn Hall said it's difficult to charge or convict suspected thieves because there has to be proof the materials were stolen. He said the province's new regulations are supposed to make it more difficult for thieves to fence stolen material by having the collectors register with the dealer.
Howard Fettis, a Surrey hauler who was given 30 days to make minor repairs to his truck, said he welcomed such inspections and hoped it would drive the unsafe and dishonest haulers out of business.
"We won't deal with the thieves," he said. "Because of guys like them, people look down at people like me. Yeah, they'll make a quick dollar but we make more money being honest than we could make stealing because people call us back [for return jobs]."
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