Legislative Watch 
LEGISLATIVE
Font Resize
 |
|
6/21/05-A bill that would have forced the owner or leaser of an intermodal chassis to be responsible for the proper maintenance of the equipment has died.
SB1038, sponsored by Sen. Sen. Kate Brown, D-Portland, remained in the Senate Transportation Committee when the panel closed for the year, effectively killing the bill.
Under the bill, ports in the state that load and unload oceangoing vessels would have been required to employ trained safety inspectors to check every intermodal chassis, the trailers that carry intermodal freight containers, before they leave a port.
Sponsored by Sen. Kate Brown, D-Portland, it called for inspections that would have checked such items as brakes, suspension, tires and wheels, connecting devices, lights, and electrical system. Inspectors would have been required to place a tamper-proof green tag on chassis with no defects and a red tag on chassis with defects.
Red-tagged chassis could not have been released to a driver until repairs were made. Removing or tampering with a tag could have resulted in a $6,250 fine, one-year imprisonment, or both.
The measure also would have allowed a driver to request that a chassis be reinspected if he or she thinks it’s unsafe. Port employees, inspectors, owners, or lessees of intermodal chassis would have been fined $1,250, serve 30 days in jail, or both, if they threatened, coerced, or otherwise retaliated against a driver who notified an inspector about the condition of a chassis, or requested reinspection or repair.
An identical bill – SB1007 – however, is still active.
