The public has a lot of questions about the safety of big rigs and their drivers after three over-height trucks have hit and damaged Washington bridges in the last two months.

I sat down with Washington State Patrol (WSP) Sergeant Rocky Oliphant at the I-5 weigh station in south Everett to talk about commercial trucking. He is in the commercial vehicle division at WSP, and his job is to pull over big rigs every day, ensuring drivers are qualified, their paperwork is in order, and their trucks are safe.

Oliphant can pull over any truck he wants at any time. He doesn’t need to see a violation, like speeding or a flat tire, to pull a truck over.

“There’s just a lot of regulations that they have to abide by,” Oliphant said. “There are a lot of restrictions on what they can do. They’re just

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