Roaring back

By BRIAN WALKER

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — Truck Jake brakes have rattled Stan Chase right out of his bedroom and onto the couch where sounds from the nearby TV can hopefully drown out the obnoxious noise outside to allow him to sleep.

"It will shake a glass of water," Chase told Kootenai County commissioners on Tuesday. "That’s the concussion we get off those brakes."

Chase, who lives on Chilco Road near the mill north of Hayden along U.S. 95, along with neighbors Cary Thomas and Robert Johnson again pleaded their case for noise reprieve to a public agency because he said the posted signs are obviously not working.

"There’s no deterrent without enforcement," Chase said.

Chase, who formerly worked at the mill near his home and others, said he understands that heavy truck traffic and other factors come with the territory of living near a mill or in the country. But he asked commissioners if the Sheriff’s Office could occasionally send a deputy to enforce the county’s noise ordinance and catch drivers who ignore the signs restricting the use of compression release engine brakes.

"There’s a group out there who just does not care," Chase said. "Yeah, it’s a pain in the a— to me personally, but there’s also elderly residents and kids out there being woken up. A footnote to this is that it’s just not on Chilco Road, but is a problem countywide."

Kootenai County Undersheriff Dan Mattos, who attended the meeting, said the residents’ point is well-taken and he vowed his agency will step up patrol in that area with the limited resources it has.

"I understand the problem," Mattos said. "We’ll do what we can. We average four deputies and one sergeant to cover the area from Athol to Worley and from Cataldo to Stateline, so there’s a lot of requirements for deputies to be in other places with other crime."

Commissioners asked the Sheriff’s Office to do what it can with patrols and even mix up the times so the drivers aren’t expecting their presence at only certain times, but they were also sympathetic to stretched resources and other demands.

The Sheriff’s Office’s volunteer program, posting a $100 maximum fine sign to the existing brake signs and increasing the fine were offered as possible other solutions to the problem.

Thomas said it seems like the Jake brakes are flipped on mostly between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m. and believes it’s done out of spite.

"It’s all on level ground out there so there’s no reason to even use Jake brakes," he said, adding that he believes it’s the minority of the overall drivers who are the issue. "The problem is not the heavy trucks themselves. If they maintain the speed they’re supposed to, there’s not a problem."

The neighbors said the problem is also not the mill operation itself, which purchased the signs, and spoke to the independent truck drivers about the noise.

"Nobody is asking them to take the trucks off the road," Chase said, adding that he’s willing to be a volunteer and partner with the Sheriff’s Office in any way to help reduce the noise.

Both the commissioners and Mattos said they don’t believe patrols will be the silver-bullet solution, especially since drivers can communicate with CBs, but are hopeful they will at least help.

Chase said residents have also been to the Lakes Highway District, the Sheriff’s Office and past commissioners in recent years, along with gathering signatures, but the problem has persisted.