Marcellus drillers' image suffering

It appears to be taking quite a while for some operators of Marcellus Shale fracking-water trucks to realize that their vehicles are supposed to be in safe working order.
Pennsylvania State Police and the state Department of Environmental Protection recently announced the results of a three-day, statewide vehicle enforcement action targeting trucks hauling gas-drilling wastewater from the hydraulic fracturing process, commonly known as fracking, and the results were not encouraging.
The report said citations were issued for 1,066 of the more than 1,400 trucks that were inspected from Oct. 25 to 27. More than 200 of the cited vehicles were immediately taken out of service, as were more than 50 drivers. This came after similar inspection efforts in June and earlier in October that led to the issuance of hundreds of citations and hundreds of vehicles being ordered off the roads.
We hear often from drivers concerned about the speeds at which these fracking-water trucks are being driven, often on secondary roads, and the fact that some of them may be less than safe does little to assuage our fears that a major accident is waiting to happen, one that perhaps could lead to a severe environmental contamination or, even worse, the maiming or death of a motorist sharing the roads with these big, heavy vehicles.
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