Commercial Vehicle Enforcement - Through the Eyes of a Local

By Chris Vinson, Commercial Vehicle Enforcement, Midlothian (Texas) Police Department

I am Chris Vinson with the city of Midlothian (Texas) Police Department, assigned to the commercial vehicle enforcement (CVE) unit. I want to take a moment to share my experiences in CVE through the lens of a local and highlight some things that have helped me grow tremendously through my tenure.

I have 20 years in law enforcement, starting my traffic career as a motorcycle officer with the DeSoto Police Department in Texas. I occasionally assisted our commercial motor vehicle (CMV) officers on truck inspections. At that point, all I knew about trucks was that they were large, had strange paperwork and really messed up crash paperwork. As a motorcycle officer, the days grew long, and sometimes my work didn’t seem to have a significant impact as I would see the same offenders over and over. I noticed that when the CMV inspectors caught bad brakes or other violations, they had the ability to park these trucks until they were repaired. I got to thinking that they were really making an impact on safety.

In 2012, I was given the opportunity to get my North American Standard Inspection Part A and B certifications and split my duties between motorcycles and CVE. I caught the inspection bug. I did this shared duty until the two commercial officers retired, and then I took over the unit. Being in a suburb of Dallas, we did not have any interaction with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) CMV troopers. I didn’t really know other inspector working groups throughout the metroplex, and I sure didn’t know anything about CVSA other than they produced the out-of-service criteria book. All I knew was what the two guys who did the job before me had taught me. Now, I thought I was doing a pretty good job. I wasn’t getting DataQ challenges or calls from the state saying otherwise. But soon a whole new world in CVE would open up for me…

Fast forward to 2018: I was invited to start the Midlothian Texas Police Department CVE unit. This was in Ellis County, which shared enforcement with Texas DPS CMV troopers. This was my first opportunity to work with other inspectors. I soon discovered that some of the other cities in the area had local inspectors who held monthly, cross-jurisdictional working groups to conduct Level I inspections together to achieve uniformity. I began working with DPS and other city inspectors, and my eyes were opened. While I wasn’t doing a terrible job before, I quickly learned that I wasn’t doing everything as thoroughly as I should have been. Through this group, I learned of the good work done through CVSA nationally and locally through the Dallas/Fort Worth Council of Safety Professionals. I began attending their monthly lunch meetings and got approval from my chain of command to attend my first CVSA conference.

With these new connections, I started to grow rapidly as an inspector. At the safety professionals’ council meetings, I was able to interact directly with CMV industry members on neutral ground and really started to learn their side of the industry – as well as their struggles. At that first CVSA conference, I discovered that even as local members, we had a voice and value at the table. I had never seen anything like this in law enforcement before. I thought back to my motorcycle cop days and realized that CMV officers can make a difference and, when we work together, make an even greater impact. Now I truly had a hunger to get involved and do my part to influence road safety. I was elected as the CVSA Local Member Vice President, and I now strive to bring more locals to this awesome experience. I realized quickly that there was a huge wall between roadside enforcement officers and drivers. To get past it, I started conducting safety talks at local companies and found that it’s much more effective to convey the compliance message at the truck yard rather than on the phone or by email. This experience gave me a passion for industry education.

Wanting to see just how much I could grow, I began competing at the Texas DPS regional inspector challenges and again realized that I still didn’t know half of what I thought I did. But every time I competed, I learned a ton. This year I was blessed with the opportunity to compete at my first North American Inspectors Championship. First, I must credit my amazing wife for supporting and encouraging me

throughout my career. Second, I owe my attention to detail and ability to understand and navigate the regulations to my work partner and the inspectors in the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) metroplex. We work so closely together that we constantly drive each other to be better. Third, I owe a great deal to the industry partners in DFW for attending our working group details and constantly offering their insight, filling the gaps in my knowledge of the trucking industry. We are a family in this industry, and we must all work together to bring about safe roadways.

I share all of this to bring home the importance of getting outside your comfort zone and working with other agencies and officers. For my DPS partners out there, I encourage you to reach out to any inspector working groups in your area. I have learned from everyone I have had the privilege of working with, whether from local jurisdictions or DPS.

If you live outside of Texas and have a trucking association in your state, please attend their meetings. Provide them with solid information but also ask questions and be willing to learn from them. Furthermore, I can’t emphasize enough the value of attending CVSA events and trainings. Hearing the “hows” and “whys” of other CMV professionals from across North America really gets you thinking about what you do roadside. You cannot place a value on the contacts and friends you make at these events. It’s beyond measure.

We all play in the same sandbox and work to accomplish the same goal of highway safety. This is a standardized program, and the only way we accomplish uniformity is if we all work together and do it the same way.