Conn. Steps Up Truck Inspections

Truck inspectors will be fanning out across Connecticut this week to look for safety violations on tractor-trailers and other large commercial trucks in response to another serious crash on Avon Mountain.

Thirty inspectors will be deployed to highways and other state roads in a joint effort with local police in the various towns.

Governor M. Jodi Rell says the first phase of the effort will run from Monday through Friday.

A tractor-trailer crashed into a furniture store at the bottom of Avon Mountain earlier this month after an apparent brake failure. Only the driver was injured. The accident came two years after a dump truck smashed into cars in the same location and killed four people.

State truck inspectors were sent to the hill between West Hartford and Avon after the latest accident and found more than 200 violations in the first three days. Inspectors also took 21 unsafe trucks off the road.