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PROFILE Constable Rick Meaver and Ello Ricciardi get underneath their work to take a look at the brakes on the blue Peter- built rig driven by Sammie Brown of Spokane. The next time you see the grill of an 18-wheeler in your rear-view mirror, be scared. Very scared. In the mountainous geography of B.C., brakes are the most important safety feature on any vehicle. Make that vehicle a tractor-trailer hauling over 100,000 pounds of cargo, and brakes are a question of life and death. “The B-trains (big two-trailer trucks) are high, and will easily go over your vehicle or mine,” said Ello Ricciardi. An inspector with the Penticton Attorney General's office, part of Ricciardi’s job involves travelling around the province to help other areas, like Castlegar, run inspections. “When one of those trucks is on my bumper, I'll pull over and let it pass.” °% Ricciardi said a recent inspection in Terrace had some unnerving Its. # was a 90-per-cent failure rate on commercial vehicles on brakes alone,” he said. Amplifying those statistics was frightening. “When you think about it, nine out of every 10 trucks don’t have proper brakes.” The local Mounties, along with the Nelson RCMP Highway Patrol, the local weigh-master, and the Motor Vehicle Branch of the Attorney General's Office, set up a commercial vehicle inspection at the Castlegar weigh scales back in May. What they found in the inspection here was almost as alarming. Of 151 vehicles inspected during the two days, 62 vehicles required repairs, and 124 charges were laid. When semi-trailers and other commerc pulled in to the scales, some were pulled aside to be given the once over by the inspection teams. “We know that it’s costing the industry time and money, but it’s for safety — yours and mine,” said Ricciardi, As the trucks slowly roll past the weigh scale, the inspection team looks for the signals to safety problems; tire-tread wear, loose attachments, braking ability, as well as listening for air leaks. The process is time consuming, and the 10 team member: working in teams of two or three, went over the trucks together. While the vehicle inspectors, like R di, were under the trucks, or examin- ing engine compartments, RCMP officers stood by at the side writing out any violations or problems on the trucks or their trailers. The Mounties often took a look for themselves. Mo Barry gets a closer look at the front brakes of this truck. He also inspected the most important items in the engine compartment, including the brake hoses and the drive shaft. Depending on the condition of the vehicle, an inspection can take anywhere from a few minutes to just over an hour. If there are serious safety problems, like a lack of brakes, the rigs will sit on site until they are repaired or towed to a repair site. The inspection is not an exercise in nitpicking. (Though, judging by the reaction of some of the drivers, they would not agree with this statement). The defects the team looks for are very basic, and are all items that the drivers are supposed to inspect every day before their rigs hit the road. “It all boils down to basic preventative maintenance,” said Ricciardi. If a defect that effects the vehicles safety, like faulty brakes or lights, is found during a pre-trip inspection, a driver is not supposed to take the rig on to the road. If the driver doesn’t own the rig, he or she is supposed to refuse to drive the vehicle until repairs are done “if they do the preventative maintenance, and repair the defects they have, they won't have to stand around here.” There were some startling sights at the inspection. On the air hoses that connect the front trailer to the rear trailer on one truck, the glad-hand coupler that connects the hoses had a one-quarter-inch crack in it. The result: all the air escapes, and the rear trailer has zero-percent braking No brakes. One of the rear-right tires on the same truck had no tread left on it. Or, as Ricc iardi, who has a reced- ing hairline, put it; “I though I was bald!” To be licensed to drive a big rig, a driver must pass air brakes training, and know how to adjust those brakes “Brake adjustment is part of a pre-trip. The driver i: supposed to do it every time he starts driving It’s like a pilot's ight — basic safety common sense.” Mo Barry, Ricciardi’s equivalent in Castlegar, said one of the most disturbing things is how often this brake adjustment is ignored. “T’ll tell a guy to tighten his brakes, and he asks to borrow a wrench,” said Barry. Adjusting brakes is not a complex process. All the driver has to do is tighten the accessible bolt on the brakes’ slack adjusters as far as the bolt will go, and then loosen it one-quarter turn, “It’s probably one of the easiest things to do,” said Barry. It is costly for drivers caught driving unsafe rigs. One truck came in with unadjusted brakes. WEDNESDAY, June 17, 1992 Jason Keenan Photos by Brendan Halper Ello Ricciardi gives the load straps a tug to ensure the load is properly secured. “All he would have had to do was adjust the brakes before he went out and he would have saved himself a $250 fine,” said Barry. Mountain driving plays a large part in the necessity for bang-on brake adjustment. When air brakes are applied, the spring in the bottom brake chamber travels 2.5 inches to apply the stopping pressure. When brakes heat up through use, one-quarter inch of that travel space is lost. Add brakes out of adjust- ment by as little as one-quarter of an inch, and the truck has no brakes. “If you adjust brakes properly, you can have as much heat as you want and you can stop,” said Barry. Braking on the steep hills we have in the Castlegar areas can cause a lot of heat. Brake drums can easily reach a temperature of 750 degrees. On a steep grade, a brake can lose three-quarters of an inch of travel. Ricciardi said that it is mandatory for tractor-trailer drivers to stop at the top of steep grades and adjust their brakes, even though the sign says check brakes. “Unfortunately, too many drivers just walk around their truck, kick the tires, step on the brakes, and decide they’ve done their check,” Ricciardi added. When Sammie Brown pulled his blue Peterbuilt rig from Spokane in to the scales, there was a dis- tinct burnt rubber smell in the air. “Some of these guys come down the hills, and they just don’t know,” said Barry. Many American drivers, unfamiliar with the steepness of local highways, come down the hill with the engine in too high a gear. Down-shifting at the top of the hill will help slow acceleration. Instead, some drivers use a full, steady application of their brakes to slow down. Weigh stationmaster Dave Shalanski said there has been a number of times when he has had to run out with a fire extinguisher to a truck coming off of the Nancy Greene highway from Grand Forks. Trucks have pulled in to the scales with their tires ignited by overheated brakes. Getting under Brown's rig was a shock. The brakes had been overheated and cooled so many times, the metal of the brake drums had cracked to the point where they no longer resembled metal. They looked like dried mud. Though the inspection team also checks to see there are no major defects in the engine, and to ensure that loads are properly secured, brakes are still their paramount concer. After ail, the most important fact is not how fast the truck is going. It is how fast it can stop. « ible Rick Meaver (right) of the Nelson RCMP Highway Patrol reads the list of fines out to Sammie Brown. An unliscenced trailer, failure to complete inspection reports, and having to purchase permits cost him over $809.