Semi-Safe

"All we want is a concrete pad somewhere," seconds officer Gary Delozier. "We don't want politics."

Politics may yet interfere with Delozier's work, however. TMTA's Findeisen says his group will aim to have DPS exert more control over municipal DOT units. "There needs to be something done at the legislative level for the Department of Public Safety to have some type of oversight, direction and control," he says.

Unless Pasadena's efforts are cut off at the knees, however, the DOT unit is unlikely to give an inch. "The law's still gonna get enforced," Robinson says. "There's plenty out there to keep us busy."

That's bad news for truckers like Luis Hernandez, who says he now avoids Highway 225 entirely if he can help it. "If my company asks me to haul a load towards La Porte on 225, I refuse," Hernandez says. "I will not go there, simply because the DOTs are there."

Hernandez says he simply can't afford to pay multiple fines for such minor shortcomings as brakes out of adjustment. He knows his trucks well enough to know that if he slams on the brakes, they'll stop, even if technically they don't measure up. "If they go with a ruler and measure it, they're gonna say it's out of adjustment," he says. "From my point of view, they're not out of adjustment."

He can't even get relief in the courts, where judges will sometimes give truckers a break and dismiss tickets. Not for brakes in Pasadena, though, at least ever since Judy Wren was killed in 1996. Wren was a longtime senior clerk in the Pasadena municipal court, and since her death, judges have been cracking down on trucks with brake problems. "How long are we gonna pay for this clerk?" Hernandez asks. "Are we all gonna be paying for the rest of our lives?"

"I think there should be a limit."

E-mail Bob Burtman at bob_burtman@houstonpress.com.