QUEEN’S PARK, Aug. 10 /CNW/ – The Ontario government is taking action to
make it safer to travel the province’s roadways by working with the rental
truck industry to improve the safety of its vehicles, Transportation Minister
Harinder Takhar said today.

A month long Ministry of Transportation inspection blitz of rental trucks

and trailers found that one in nine rental trucks inspected was not safe

enough to be on the road.

“While any unsafe vehicle on our roads is unacceptable, there is a clear

problem with this industry’s safety standards,” said Takhar. “The industry has

a public responsibility to make sure every one of its rental trucks are up to

standard. Rental truck companies will need to explain how they intend to do

more frequent inspections and repairs. This is about public safety, and making

sure consumers are protected.”

Ministry staff will meet with members of the truck rental industry this

week to insist on a thorough plan of repairs and inspections to improve the

safety of their vehicles.

The province conducted random inspections of 14 truck rental companies

across Ontario between July 11 and August 5, 2005.

A total of 693 vehicles were randomly inspected at rental companies

across Ontario. Of those, 74 were taken out of service for mechanical defects,

primarily with brakes, lighting and steering.

“People need to know that the trucks they are renting are safe, and

reliable, and we’re making sure that happens,” Takhar said. “We will be more

aggressive with random roadside and site inspections. We’re putting the

industry on notice – clean up your act, or your rental trucks will be taken

off the road.”

MTO and OPP will continue random truck and trailer inspections both at

roadside and at rental company sites across Ontario.

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Backgrounder

MTO SHORT-TERM RENTAL TRUCK BLITZ RESULTS

Summary of July 11 to August 5, 2005 on-site inspections of personal use

rental trucks:

–   693 vehicles were inspected in total

–   74 vehicles were found to have out-of-service (OOS) defects (10.7

per cent of all vehicles inspected)

–   296 U-Haul vehicles were inspected (43.5 per cent of all inspections

performed)

–   58 U-Haul vehicles were found to have out-of-service defects (19.6

per cent OOS rate)

–   Inspections were performed on-site in various urban centres including

the Greater Toronto Area, Ottawa, London, Windsor, Mississauga,

Kitchener-Waterloo, St. Catharines, Thunder Bay, Newmarket, Oshawa,

and Niagara Falls.

<<

Results by firm*

————————————————————————-

Firm               No. Inspections        No. OOS          % OOS

————————————————————————-

Bristol                    5                  1            20.00

————————————————————————-

U-Haul                   296                 58            19.60

————————————————————————-

Ryder                     69                  7            10.10

————————————————————————-

National                  45                  4             8.90

————————————————————————-

Avis                      16                  1              6.3

————————————————————————-

Pollock                   17                  1             5.90

————————————————————————-

Hertz                     44                  1             2.30

————————————————————————-

Budget                    57                  1             1.80

————————————————————————-

Discount                  63                  0             0.00

————————————————————————-

Enterprise                10                  0             0.00

————————————————————————-

Thrifty                   29                  0             0.00

————————————————————————-

Penske                    22                  0             0.00

————————————————————————-

Carter                    15                  0             0.00

————————————————————————-

Advantage                  5                  0             0.00

————————————————————————-

Total                    693                 74            10.70

————————————————————————-

Results by defect type

————————————————————————-

Defects                Number        Percentage of OOS Attributable to

this Defect Type

————————————————————————-

Brakes                    26                         28.3%

————————————————————————-

Lighting                  21                         22.8%

————————————————————————-

Steering                  14                         15.2%

————————————————————————-

Suspension                10                         10.9%

————————————————————————-

Tires                      9                          9.8%

————————————————————————-

Fuel                       8                          8.7%

————————————————————————-

Exhaust                    2                          2.2%

————————————————————————-

Coupling Devices           1                          1.1%

————————————————————————-

* The names associated with these results indicate a number of

different franchise system trade names used by the companies to which the

plates of inspected vehicles are registered. The safety record of an

individual franchisee may not be representative of the safety record of a

particular franchise system. This safety information is intended to

describe the safety record of individual plate holder companies and is

not necessarily representative of the overall safety of different

franchise systems.

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>>

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For further information: Danna O’Brien, Minister’s Office,

(416) 327-1815; Bob Nichols, Communications Branch, (416) 327-1158