The California Air Resources Board (CARB) recently dubbed its “Gear Up for Clean Truck Month” a “success.” The campaign was a month-long campaign that took place this past August. During the campaign, CARB audited numerous diesel trucks and issued fleet citations in an effort to assure that trucks were complying with the sates’ air pollution laws. These highly visible events, held throughout the state, also showed the public that the agency is serious about enforcing its pollution regulations. The agency was basically saying that if you’re a California trucking company, you better play by the rules.
During the campaign, trucks were inspected for compliance with several air pollution laws, including those requiring owners of certain model year vehicles to install diesel soot filters to reduce harmful diesel emissions. CARB worked with the California Highway Patrol, Caltrans and the California Department of Food and Agriculture, to inspect 4,053 trucks at around 40 locations throughout the state during the campaign. The agency noted an overall compliance rate of more than 80%. They also noted that for 1996-1999 model year trucks – the first ones required to be in compliance under the comprehensive Truck and Bus regulation passed in 2008 – the compliance rate was 90%.
A total of 817 citations were issued during the month-long effort. The breakdown of the citations were: 212 for violations of the Transport Refrigeration Unit rule, 191 for non-compliance with the Bus and Truck rule, 187 for idling infractions, and 174 for Emissions Certification Labels violations.
CARB also used the events to spread the word to truckers on the regulatory requirements that affect their businesses. The agency distributed more than 4,600 information packets to help educate truck drivers and to reinforce the importance of obeying air pollution laws.
The fact that CARB launched this effort probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise to any California trucking company, especially to those who are Los Angeles trucking companies. This campaign is CARB’s way of making that the playing field is level and everyone is obeying the rules.
