No Smoking : County’s New Smog Officer Tracks and Cites Pollution-Spewing Vehicles

Asteady stream of smoke was puffing out of a large truck’s smokestack as it rumbled along the Ventura Freeway in Oxnard.

California Highway Patrol Officer Craig Williams followed for about a mile, then made his move, pulling over the truck and issuing the driver a ticket that will cost the truck’s owner, La Salle Paper of Santa Fe Springs, $250.

Williams is the county’s new smog cop. He’s been on the job three days, ticketing smoke-spewing vehicles that illegally pollute the air. So far, he’s ticketed 12.

His catch includes a school bus, a trash truck, a few big trailer rigs, a 1980 Audi and two Oldsmobiles at least 10 years old.

“The semis are the major polluters,” said Williams, who has been a patrolman for 12 years. “Most of the cars you find smoking are going to be 10 years old or older.”

Williams’ job was created as part of the county’s new Smoking Vehicle Program, a joint venture of the county’s Air Pollution Control District and the CHP. A similar program operates in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Funded here for one year with $94,500, the experimental program also includes a toll-free hot line to be set up in about a month for people to call if they see a polluting vehicle.

The aim of the program is to reduce the smog in the county’s air. Last year the county exceeded the federal standard for ozone, a main component of smog, on 33 days, said Richard Baldwin, director of the pollution control district. Emissions from motor vehicles contribute more than 50% of the smog-causing pollutants in the county.

“I have an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old and if we don’t do something about it now, what’s going to happen to their kids?” Williams said as he took to the county’s highways and the surface streets in unincorporated areas Wednesday.

He doesn’t use any fancy equipment to detect or measure smoke. He is likely to ticket any gas-powered car or small truck that emits visible smoke.

“They should not smoke,” he said. For owners of such vehicles, the first offense is a “fix-it” ticket that carries no fine if the vehicle is repaired. Subsequent tickets carry fines of up to $250.

Ticketing diesel-powered cars and larger trucks is trickier. For those, Williams must watch the vehicle to see if it smokes steadily for at least 10 seconds. Using a smoke chart by the steering wheel, he determines whether the smoke is dark enough to warrant a ticket.

For owners of larger trucks, a first offense carries a $250 fine. Subsequent offenses go up to $5,000.

Most of the truck drivers don’t object to the tickets, Williams said, because paying the $250 fine is the responsibility of the truck owner. Nor does the driver’s record suffer.

When Williams spotted the La Salle Paper truck, he followed it longer than is required. “I like to give them the benefit of the doubt,” he said.

The truck’s driver, Joseph Culbertson, wasn’t aware the rig was smoking.

“It just came back from the shop,” he said as Williams wrote the ticket. “It’s probably something little in the engine that needs adjusting.” Although Culbertson does a maintenance check on the truck each day, he doesn’t check for pollution.

When Williams tickets a vehicle, he gives the driver a paper listing the smoke’s possible causes and their remedies.

“The most common problem is that the carburetor needs an adjustment,” he said.

Williams already has heard a few excuses. The elderly man driving a 1979 Oldsmobile told him that he was on his way at that moment to get a tuneup.

Others might try to tell Williams that the pollution problem just began, but they would be wise not to do that.

“Have a look at the front of that tractor (truck),” he said as he sat in his patrol car near an on-ramp. “If it’s black, the truck has had the problem for a long time.” Another telltale sign, he said, is the black soot on the outside of the smokestack.

“That stuff is murder for you, breathing it in,” he said.