Goshen police impound unsafe truck, issue 20 feet of violations

Goshen police pulled a commercial truck off Route 17M near the highway and ended up impounding it after officers found a string of safety violations serious enough to keep the vehicle out of service.

Police Chief James Post said the stop was made last Thursday by one of the department’s commercial vehicle enforcement officers, with a representative from the state Department of Transportation also on scene. The truck was hauling construction debris to a dump on a trailer, but the load was not covered properly, and officers found multiple defects that made the vehicle unsafe to keep operating.

Among the violations Post cited were unsafe tires, brake issues, significant holes in the frame and the driver’s failure to carry a required DOT medical card. The truck was taken out of service and impounded after the inspection.

The stop became more notable when the driver and two passengers responded with mockery as tickets piled up. Post said one of the men told officers he did not care how many tickets were issued because he was leaving the country anyway. At one point, Post said, the men waved the long trail of citations like a jump rope, and one of them even jumped over it, giving rise to the description that the driver had played “jump rope” with the tickets.

No one was found to be impaired, and police said there was no drug or alcohol issue involved. The enforcement action was instead a reminder of how routine roadside inspections can expose commercial-vehicle problems that might otherwise stay hidden until a crash, brake failure or other mechanical breakdown put other motorists in danger.

For Goshen and the wider Orange County road network, the stop underscored how closely local police and state transportation officials monitor trucks that move through the area’s major corridors. On roads where passenger cars, delivery vehicles and heavy commercial trucks all share the pavement, a load that is uncovered, a frame that is compromised or brakes that are not working properly can turn a normal drive into a serious hazard in seconds.