To
protect the Butler County roads and bridges,
the Butler County Engineer’s Office in conjunction with the Butler County
Sheriff’s Office implemented a truck enforcement program o January 1, 1991.
The program is designed to reduce the overweight trucks on our bridges, but has
also evolved into a comprehensive truck safety enforcement program which
benefits not only the motoring public, but the truck drivers themselves.
The
Butler County Engineer’s Office and the Butler County Sheriff’s Office Truck
Weight Limit Enforcement Program utilizes a full-time
Deputy who patrols the County and checks suspect vehicles for load limit
violations by utilizing portable truck scales. The Deputy looks for visible
loads, vehicles dropping material onto the roadway, “egged out” tires or how the
truck seems to be riding.
The
Deputy also assists the cities and works closely with the State Highway Patrol
and PUCO (Public Utilities Commission of Ohio) to enforce truck safety
throughout Butler County. The only real solution to this problem is voluntary
compliance from the trucking industry. Many trucking companies simply consider
fines part of the cost of doing business without taking seriously the dangers
imposed on the general public and the truck drivers themselves.
The
Butler County Sheriff’s Office Deputy works the unincorporated and incorporated
areas of Butler County. He monitors truck traffic on the roadways and looks for
probable cause that a truck is overweight and use this probable cause to
initiate a stop, weight the vehicle with the “PAT Wheel Load Portable Scales”
and then issue the appropriate citation(s). Once the case has been adjudicated
in the Court of Law, the fines levied area turned over to a fund to repair any
damage to bridges or roadways, caused due to overweight vehicles.
