About 5,000 people are killed each year in the United States in crashes involving large trucks. Few of the deaths were more preventable than David Schreffler's.
Schreffler, 49, of Fort Washington, was driving on the Schuylkill Expressway in January when traffic slowed. A big rig behind his car was unable to stop and caused a multi-vehicle crash that killed him.
State police inspected the truck, and what they found was deplorable. The brakes on the 18-wheeler were defective; three of the 10 brake assemblies had failed completely and others were in bad shape.
The truck was on the road despite receiving 18 safety violations in the previous six months. Four times, authorities in other states had ordered the rig taken out of service, for faulty brakes and a falsified driver's log.
Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman this week announced vehicular homicide charges against the truck driver, Valerijs Belovs, 55, of Northeast Philadelphia; the owner of the rig, Victor Kalinitchii, 41, of Philadelphia; and Joseph Jadczak, 61, of Delaware, owner of the Philadelphia garage that allegedly sold an inspection sticker for the truck for $200, without inspecting it.
The probe into this fatal crash may have prevented another tragedy. When state police arrived at Pratt's Auto Repair in Northeast Philadelphia to charge Jadczak, they witnessed another truck driver allegedly obtaining a new inspection sticker without getting an inspection. Now, police are asking 300 other trucks that were inspected at Pratt to be reinspected.
Ferman and state police deserve credit for making this case a priority. Too many owners or operators of tractor-trailer rigs manage to evade regulations and keep unsafe trucks on the highways.
State police pulled over 67,584 trucks in Pennsylvania in 2008 to look for safety problems. They issued 34,000 citations. But the police don't have the staff needed to follow up and make sure all those cited violations are corrected. In the meantime, trucks like the one that killed Schreffler go back on the road.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D., N.J.) plans to introduce a bill next month that would address truck safety on America's roads, primarily by limiting the size and weight of rigs. Lautenberg also has advocated for trucks to carry electronic recorders, akin to an airliner's "black box," that would record safety data including hours of operation and brake information.
While the vast majority of truck drivers and trucking company owners are responsible, the consequences when they skirt the law are irrevocable. Large trucks account for only 3 percent of all registered vehicles, but they're involved in 9 percent of all fatal crashes.
Those deaths tell us that state and federal officials need to cooperate more to ensure that trucks on the road haven't fallen through cracks in the inspection system.