This week in Overdrive Radio, a sitdown talk with Tennessee Highway Patrol Lieutenant Christopher Brooks I recorded during the first day of Roadcheck in May. You may have heard parts of the conversation in the video two weeks back that centered on one of Roadcheck's primary focus areas in remote electronic-logging-device manipulation, chameleon carriers and all that’s happening at federal and state levels to target bad actors in that regard: https://www.overdriveonline.com/15827779

Or lack thereof. In our accounting with Overdrive’s RigDig sister company tracking enforcement trends in the violation data, as of today Tennessee’s still only issued a few violations for out-of-service ELD tampering, unlike other jurisdictions: https://overdriveonline.com/15826126

But as Brooks notes in the podcast, they’re least learning. With federal investigatory efforts in partnership, he’s hopeful the wide fraud problem can ultimately be eliminated to keep unfair competition from truly bad-actor chameleons out of the market.

More importantly for most of you, hear plenty from the Lieutenant about ways you might prep for the next blitz, the Operation Safe Driver Week traffic enforcement initiative happening July 12-18 nationwide.

Last week, we published rankings of state truck enforcement departments looking at moving violations issued as a percent of the total. Tennessee sits pretty high on that list, and that's no accident, according to Lt. Brooks. The state’s moved to prioritize traffic stops and Level 3 driver-credentials inspections increasingly over the years, certifying virtually the entire state highway patrol's road trooper force to Level 3.

The talk overall could be instructive with respect to getting ready for July roadside week. Brooks emphasizes ways to prep throughout for these kinds of expanded enforcement initiatives. At once, the week might not be quite what it used to be when it comes enforcement intensity overall, if CVSA-published numbers are any indication. Warnings/citations issued as a result of stepped-up efforts targeting both passenger-vehicle drivers and commercial truckers are way down from highs in 2020, as shown in the chart below in this post: https://overdriveonline.com/15828850

Just where those warnings and citation go, though, has clearly has shifted across jurisdictions back to the commercial-trucker side of the equation, since at least 2023. In places like Tennessee, where a large majority of troopers are certified to complete Level 3 inspections, expect credentials/hours checks to accompany most traffic stops during the week, yet full driver/truck inspections are always a possibility.

Brooks emphasized the importance of preparation for these kinds of all-hands-on-deck enforcement efforts, starting the talk with reference to the equipment focus of Roadcheck this year -- load securement. That’s a category where Tennessee’s truly something of outlier.

In our enforcement rankings for 2025, the state ranked No. 1 on the list of states with the highest percentage of overall load securement violations among states nationwide. For the moving violations in focus during Operation Safe Driver Week, Tennessee's at No. 11 nationwide.

You've got roughly two weeks left to prep.

"It really makes a world of difference. ... A little planning ahead of time" will help inspectors "get you back on the road, get the wheels back moving and reduce the time it takes to make that inspection."

As mentioned in the podcast:

**THP's Motor Carrier Plus specialized unit: https://www.tn.gov/safety/tnhp/cvemain.html

**Recent accounting of ELP OOS violations nationwide: https://overdriveonline.com/15828727