The Dallas Morning News, "Big rigs, big risks on highways"

          The truck had two bad brakes and a tired driver. It carried a load of cars. And it slammed into the back of an SUV carrying two young boys and their fathers. One of the dads was a firefighter, the other a state trooper whose job was to keep bad rigs off the road. Everybody died.
          The truck should not have been on the road. If it had been inspected, the truck would have been sent straight to a mechanic. But only a fraction of the millions of trucks rolling down Texas highways are subjected to spot inspections on the road. When inspectors get a look at them, the failure rate is high. One out of three is taken out of service for serious problems with the equipment or the driver. And only 14 percent of trucks examined in 2002 were free of safety violations, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
          Truck drivers say they would like to see rates decline for trucks taken out of service because of violations. Roads would be safer, insurance rates would fall, and operators complying with the rules wouldn't get underbid by those willing to cut corners. The solution is simple, said Bill Webb, president and chief executive of the Texas Motor Transportation Association, which represents both owner-operators and large carriers. "There needs to be more enforcement," he said. "Any trucker that's trying to avoid the rules, all they're doing is making it harder on the people who are doing it right."
          California has a reputation among truck drivers for being tough on safety violations -- fines for logbook violations start at $1,300. It has about the same amount of road and rigs as Texas, but the commercial vehicle enforcement budget is 2 & 1/2 times the size of Texas'. With inspection stations open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, California in 2002 checked nearly 500,000 trucks, to Texas's 214,000 In California, half of the trucks inspected in 2002 didn't have any violations.