Company May Pay For Spill Company Won’t Say If It Knew Driver Had Suspended License
A Montana trucking company may be forking over thousands of dollars to mop up a tar spill left after its unlicensed driver wrecked on Interstate 90.
Bryon Bevis, a driver for Kuck Trucking Corp. of Billings was pulling two tankers full of hot tar into Coeur d’Alene on Tuesday when one of the tanks crashed, splattering tar for hundreds of feet along the highway.
The 36-year-old Billings man’s driver’s license had been suspended in two states, one of his truck brakes was out of alignment, his log book had not been kept properly and he was using a radar detector against federal regulations, Idaho State Police officials said.
Kuck officials would not say Thursday whether they knew Bevis’ license was suspended when they sent him to Spokane with two tanks full of tar.
But when asked about the mess he left behind, “We’ll be responsible for it,” said a company spokeswoman who refused to give her name.
The cleanup could cost between $30,000 and $50,000, said Don Johnson, assistant maintenance engineer for the Idaho Department of Transportation.
The wreck involving an unlicensed driver reflects a boom in interstate commerce and a shortage of ISP officers to inspect trucks entering the state.
ISP officers in the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program are assigned to check commercial vehicles for safety and hazardous materials violations.
In 1994, officers inspected 7,548 commercial vehicles. Out of those inspections, they found 197 truck drivers on the road with suspended licenses.
Another 2,822 trucks were found to have brakes out of alignment, said Saundra DeKlotz, the inspection program manager.
While the number of commercial vehicles licensed in Idaho has skyrocketed in the last 10 years, the number of officers whose job it is to catch truckers like Bevis has remained almost the same.
When the inspection program started in 1994, 12 officers inspected trucks. There are only eight such officers now, DeKlotz said. However, several additional hazardous materials officers have been added.
The number of commercial vehicles registered in Idaho has almost doubled from 311,622 in 1984 to 616,260 in 1994.
“We’re doing what we can but to be truthful, we can’t touch” all the problems, said Sgt. Bud Branson. “We just do what we can do with what we have.”
Each inspection officer searches between six to eight trucks a day looking for violations with both the big rigs and the driver.
Despite the increasing load of commercial truck traffic in Idaho, there have been some improvements in safety, Branson said.
“The trucks and the drivers are better than they have ever been,” said Branson. “The industry has gotten a bad name because, when they do have an accident, it’s a serious situation.”
In 1984, there were 3,192 commercial vehicle accidents in Idaho. However, by 1994 that number had decreased to 1,396.
The number of truckers driving without licenses and driving with faulty brakes has also decreased significantly in recent years, DeKlotz said.
Kootenai County Disaster Services officials say cleanup of the tar spill east of Coeur d’Alene on I-90 is expected to be nearly complete by the end of the work day today.
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