Traffic safety violations from this week - Monday, Jul. 24 to Saturday, Jul. 29

Officers from Halton police’s Commercial Motor Vehicle Unit have had their hands full this past week dealing with unsafe vehicles on our roads.

Five days ago, on Tuesday, July 25, Constable Marc Taraso spotted a re-inforcing bar (rebar) lying on the middle of the road. The bars are used to reinforce a structure during construction.

Taraso tweeted that the bar could’ve been a “projectile if driven over,” and is a reason why [the HRPS] “is so strict on load security.”

The next day, Wednesday, July 26, Taraso stopped a dump truck near Bronte Road and Dundas Street. Upon inspection, he discovered two worn air lines due to reinforcement ply, a leaking brake chamber and a loose axle tracking component. The vehicle was also overloaded on drive axles by 3.5 tons, and the load on the rear tailgate was insecure. Charges were laid and the vehicle was suspended.

A few hours later, Taraso intercepted “another noisemaker” near Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. “Mufflers are not optional,” he remarked in a tweet. The driver was charged.

On Thursday, Taraso didn’t make it to his first destination as he came across a driver behind the wheel of “an uninsured vehicle on the QEW with an expired permit.”

It turned out that the driver had been suspended and had thousands of dollars in unpaid fines. Plates were removed, the vehicle was towed, and the driver was issued a summons to court.

Later that afternoon, a pick up truck was pulled over for being overloaded. The vehicle also had an inoperative parking/emergency brake. “All motor vehicles must have two independent means of applying brakes. Generally that is the service and parking brake.” The driver was charged.