Corman Park police stop semi held together with duct tape

Corman Park police made quite the catch to kick off February after being told by an off-duty RCMP member that a dangerous semi-truck had been spotted travelling along Highway 11 on Sunday.

A Corman Park officer was in the area and pulled the truck over.

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Police said in a Facebook post that the semi had both its driver and passenger side windows broken and covered in duct tape, a severely damaged windshield obstructing the driver’s view, and a driver’s side mirror held together with duct tape.

The driver was issued multiple citations and police will notify the carrier. The vehicle was immediately removed from service and towed from the highway.

Corman Park’s police chief Rob Duttchen said it was probably the worst commercial vehicle offence he’d ever seen.

“Now, I don’t come from a commercial vehicle inspection background or a traffic enforcement background, but even in my 25 years in Winnipeg, I don’t recall seeing a commercial vehicle operated on the road in that poor condition,” he said.

“It’s one thing for a trained commercial vehicle inspector to look at a truck and see that it’s not going to pass an inspection. It’s quite another for the motoring public to be driving by and saying, ‘This is inherently not safe,’” said Duttchen.

Corman Park’s police chief Rob Duttchen said it was probably the worst commercial vehicle offence he’d ever seen. (Corman Park Police Service/Facebook)

Duttchen said the vehicle posed an immense risk to road users.

“At the best of times, a commercial vehicle has a very limited field of view to the rear. That’s why you’ll see notices on commercial vehicles to stay out of the driver’s blind spot,” he said.

“This driver had functionally increased their blind spot on an already difficult vehicle to see what’s going on behind you probably to almost zero.

“There was no safe way, given the configuration of the vehicle, for him to monitor traffic to the rear. His driver-side mirror was completely broken and was being held in place by duct tape, which, of course, provides him no vision whatsoever rearward, like the mirror is designed to do,” he said.

“The reality is that a commercial vehicle is significantly larger and significantly heavier, and any loss of control or any unsafe action by that vehicle is magnified by virtue of the fact that it is going to do more and more severe damage than a normal-sized car or truck on the road.

“You’re talking about tens of thousands of pounds moving down the road, as opposed to thousands of pounds moving down the road, so it’s literally the difference between a jumbo jet and a Cessna in terms of the damage that’s going to be caused,” said Duttchen.

“The thing that is telling in this case is just how glaring it was that this vehicle was unfit for travel on provincial highways.”

— with files from CKOM News

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