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06
Apr
Dumb Laws
“Hey! You wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?” The answer is “no”…no you don’t. That would be dumb. You may very well consider the person who asked you the question to be dumb. You could even pose […]
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16
Mar
Special Mobile Equipment – Week 2
There once was a man who owned a horse. He loved horses, but he equally loved the environment and refused to further decimate the good earth with a polluting modern automobile. The man rode the horse everywhere…to work, the grocery […]
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02
Feb
Safety Inspections – Part 3
It’s week three on the series about safety inspections. In week one, this blog looked at an illegal use of annual periodic inspections. Last week, the article focused on the complexity and difficulty in understanding the Illinois safety test law. […]
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26
Jan
Safety Inspections – Part 2
Welcome back! Remember the story being told last week about Bill the Trucker? Well things changed. After pretending to be an interstate carrier for about 8 months (when in reality he was an intrastate carrier), he got caught by the […]
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19
Jan
Safety Inspections – Part 1
Two quotes, same problem. Any truck officer worth his salt has heard this line from a truck driver who did not have a safety inspection “…but I have a USDOT number!” . Any truck officer who has worked alongside non-truck […]
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01
Dec
Highway Safety
Earlier this week, Illinois lost one of their finest. On November 26th, Illinois State Trooper Kyle Deatherage had used his police motorcycle to make a traffic stop on I-55 north of Litchfield, IL. While standing alongside the car, he was […]
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10
Nov
Winter Exemptions
Hurricane Sandy battered the eastern seaboard last week. As the region began to recover, it became readily apparent trucking into the New England states was of the highest priority. Without fuel, food and other vital goods, the work could not […]
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07
Nov
Employee Classification Act
Legislation is always a double-edged sword. In any given bill, there are good reasons behind the writing
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29
Sep
DUIs, CMVs, & CDLs
Drunk driving. It doesn’t take any real effort to convince someone of the danger and waste of life caused by it. Each person is at least one relationship removed from someone who has had their life impacted by a drunk driver. Thankfully, over the last 30 years, the number of fatal crashes in Illinois due to alcohol has been on the decline…but every death or serious injury is still one too many. Seat belt usage, safer cars, education campaigns, and better engineered roads have all played a part in this. Enforcement, however, is the universal deterrent that keeps drunk drivers off the road and begins the justice process for the offense. When it comes to CDL holders drinking and driving, there is a lot of confusion.
The first thing to understand is the definition of a commercial motor vehicle as it pertains to DUI. Different arenas of truck enforcement have different definitions of a CMV, but as it matters to DUI, a CMV is any vehicle or combination of vehicles that requires a commercial driver’s license.
The second point to understand is that a CDL holder has in essence two different licenses…an operator’s license and a CDL. If the CDL holder is operating a non-CDL vehicle under the influence, he is in trouble and his operator license can be suspended or revoked, also known as a “stop”. A CDL holder cannot have a stop on his operator’s license and maintain a valid CDL simultaneously. If the base license is gone, so goes the privileged CDL. It is possible to have a CDL disqualified for reasons other than DUI and still maintain a valid operator’s license. But if a CDL holder gets a DUI while driving a CMV, both licenses will be stopped.
The real confusion lies in the understanding the difference between the criminal charge of DUI while operating a CMV and administrative penalties for having any blood alcohol level at all. The crime of DUI is the same regardless of vehicle (625 ILCS 5/11-501A2) and the per se BAC is .08 (625 ILCS 5/11-501A1). While it is possible to be convicted of the criminal charge of DUI with a BAC less than .08, it is rare.
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18
Aug
FMCSR Week 8: Community Caretakers
To protect and serve. The sloganeers from a past generation of law enforcement penned that phrase…and for good reason. It represents the “necessary-good” side of police work. The citizens depend on police officers for their security. […]
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