Our View

Our View

Arkansas Highway Police keeping state roadways safe

We’ve got to hand it to the uniformed men and women who don’t seem to get the same recognition as their cohorts within the Arkansas law enforcement community.

They are the scores of officers associated with the Arkansas Highway Police, a nationally recognized leader in the fields of drug interdiction, motor carrier safety and hazardous materials enforcement and training.

But, that wasn’t actually this agencies primary duties when the Arkansas General Assembly passed Act 299 creating the agency in 1929.

The result of the act was the assignment of administrative oversight of the Arkansas Road Patrol to the Arkansas Highway Department. The officers appointed to fill the 20 allocated positions for the patrol became the first enforcement officers in Arkansas to be officially commissioned by state law.

Through the years following the creation of the patrol, the unit was transferred between various agencies of state government, but it always maintained its identify. For a time, the agency was part of the Arkansas Revenue Department, creating a working relationship that transcended all subsequent relocation of the enforcement group. Today, all highway police officers carry a commission as an agent of the Commissioner of Revenues.

According to the agency’s website, in 1963, the enforcement effort that began as the State Road Patrol, once again became part of the Arkansas Highway Department. In 1979, the Division’s name was changed to the Arkansas Highway Police, and in 1989, the powers and duties of the Transportation Safety Agency were transferred to the Arkansas Highway Police. It was at that time officers began to include enforcement of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which brings us to what this agency does today to keep our main interstate system and major highways safe.

For example, during the agency’s annual statewide random inspection blitz, more than one in five commercial trucks had violations severe enough for them to be pulled off the road pending repairs.

Police across the state randomly inspected 637 trucks, and they took 149 “big rigs” out of service. We’re told the most common reason police pulled trucks off the roads was break problems, which is a serious infraction. The rate of vehicle violations is similar to last year’s inspection results, when officers pulled 168 trucks out of service from the 619 they inspected. But the number of drivers taken out of service increased by more than 50 percent from the 43 drivers taken out of service last year.

In total, officers flagged more than 1,800 violations. Some problems, such as faulty windshield wipers, were minor enough that police let drivers finish their assignment before requiring repairs. Trucks with more serious issues had to wait for repairs at the inspection sites.

Those of us who have to deal with one of the busiest “big rig” corridors in the southeastern United States can certainly appreciate the enormous responsibility these officers have to deal with on a daily basis and the work they do to keep our highways as safe as possible.

The results of this recent statewide inspection blitz shows the importance of having these officers patrolling our highways, and we certainly want to recognize all these officers for what they do.