FORT MILL, SC (WBTV) -
South Carolina officers kicked off a major campaign Wednesday aimed at keeping you and your family safe on the roads.
Operation Roadcheck is the largest targeted enforcement program on commercial trucks in the world. An average of 14 trucks will be inspected every minute from Canada to Mexico during a 72-hour period.
So far just this year the state transport police have issued 15,233 safety citations to truckers compared to the 16,882 issued all of 2011.
SC Transport Police were out at various weigh stations across the state, randomly checking big rigs for safety violations.
Summer travel is about to start and officers say they want to prevent as many crashes as they can.
There were 86 deadly accidents last year in South Carolina involving trucks, that's nine more than in 2010. Wednesday 18-wheelers got a once over to make sure that number doesn't go up any more this year.
Eric Caudle has been a truck driver for 10 years.
"This is what we do for a living and it's not always safe out here," said Caudle.
He's had his share of scares out on the road.
"I've been in two wrecks with this truck," said Caudle "Both times cars cut in front of me or tried to make turns in front of me."
Neither wrecks were his fault. Wednesday, he was stopped by the South Carolina State Transport Police to make sure he won't cause any future wrecks.
"Trucks up and down the road like any other vehicle so we want to make sure there's no problems on the road," said Cpl. Mike Still with the STP.
The State Transport Police are in a nut shell is the highway patrol for truckers.
They stop trucks and make sure they're following the national safety trucking rules of the road. Still says there's three levels of truck inspections, "Level one is the most in-depth inspection."
Officers rode on rolling back boards to get underneath and up close and personal with the semis to check lights, tires, breaks.
"If they're tires are in bad shape or their brakes are bad they don't stop as fast as any other vehicle," said Cpl. Still.
Trucks can haul more than 80,000 pounds of weight. At a speed of 55 miles per hour, a semi's stopping distance is the length of a football field. So if the equipment on the truck is faulty Still says the consequences can be deadly.
Caudle says a trucker's office is the road. He's been lucky to have only been in two accidents, but He says if car drivers just slowed down and used turn signals more things would be better.
"I've seen more accidents in a day's time than I'd like to see," said Caudle.
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