The State - News from Feb. 16, 1986

A bill now before the Legislature would allow the California Highway Patrol to use unmarked patrol cars for officers to detect safety violations by commercial truck rigs, an enforcement move unprecedented in the agency’s 60-year history. At present, the CHP uses unmarked units in auto theft and some undercover investigations. But a bill introduced by Sen. John Seymour (R-Anaheim) would authorize the use of unmarked cars to nab heavy commercial truck speeders, weight violators and other commercial truckers who are not driving safely. Elmer Brown, the head of government relations for the California Trucking Assn., the trucking industry’s statewide lobbying arm, said the industry supports the Seymour bill as a way of getting irresponsible, “‘cowboy” truckers, who are dangerous to motorists, off the road.