EDITORIAL
State must weed out 'renegade' truckers

Imagine the helpless horror of the two persons riding mauka-bound in a van on the Pali Highway on Christmas Eve when they saw a huge, runaway gravel-laden dump truck careening across the broad grass median from the town-bound lanes — right at them.

Police, who are continuing a negligent-homicide investigation, say the driver was not licensed to be driving that type of truck, which had an expired safety sticker.

The mechanical condition of the truck, and whether it was safely loaded, have not yet been reported.

Transportation officials say there's a problem with a few "renegade" owners and drivers who flout the law, reports Advertiser transportation writer Mike Leidemann. They aren't including the suspect or his employer in that group, so far.

But as the Christmas Eve crash makes painfully clear, this "problem" is not a small one. We'd suggest that the Transportation Department must snap out of its routine and actively pursue these truckers to get them off the road, permanently.

The state maintains a permanent weight check facility on Sand Island Access Road, which means that's the one place you will never find renegade truckers. State enforcers must get into motion to find them.

Overweight, mechanically unsound trucks with unqualified drivers behind the wheel are potential weapons of mass destruction. They can't be tolerated.