You can’t cry if you don’t comply

Friends and neighbors, step right up! New Hampshire’s going to show y’all a thing or two about collecting revenue!

At least that’s what the word is around The Counter of Knowledge.

New Hampshire State Police recently conducted a safety saturation effort and they had the nerve to do it right before International Roadcheck – the widely publicized, nationwide Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance inspection push. Can you believe it? I mean, who in the world would think to do that?

(Disclaimer – this is a rhetorical question and remember – this is satire. Keep reading before you get on the Twitters to tell on me.)

The two-day saturation resulted in a total of 263 inspections and netted a total of 503 violations

Wait. Wut?

I had to read it again, because those numbers made me cock my head like the dog does when you say, “Wanna go out?”

Total number of trucks inspected was 263 which resulted in a total of 503 violations.

Look y’all, I’m not known for my prowess at mathing, but even I know that equals an average of two violations for every truck inspected. If you want to get egghead-technical, it’s 1.91 violations per stop.

This is either terrifying or infuriating. Probably both.

So I got on the phone to speak with Lt. Andrew Player of the New Hampshire State Police to verify the numbers. And what Lt. Player told me would really disappoint the pontificators at The Counter of Knowledge, because it indicates why all the orators of such stature have time enough to tell big tales.

(Pssst – it’s because they’re not taking the time to do their pre-trip inspections.)

I know it’s a lot easier to flop around on the ground and cry about an average of two violations per truck, but here’s the thing: if you don’t want to feed the beast don’t do dumb stuff, like skipping your pre-trip.

When I pressed Lt. Player about the numbers seeming a bit high, he was kind enough to go back through previous violation stats for the year. According to his information, the safety saturation didn’t result in a higher number of average violations-per-stop. There were a higher number of stops done in a two-day period of time, but not an above-average number of violations issued.

“This is fairly consistent to what we usually see,” said Lt. Player. He went on to say, and this is a direct quote: “Proper pre-trip would have probably cured a number of these violations.”

The “official” CVSA safety sweep begins tomorrow.

Do your pre-trips.