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Resident warns Largo Police trailers lack safety pins; commissioners say recent inspection found equipment in order
Summary
A resident urged the commission to require trailer safety equipment after alleging prior failures led to deadly accidents; commissioners said the city inspected equipment after the prior meeting and found it in order, and one commissioner noted pins are kept at the Traffic Safety Office while trailers are parked.
A Largo resident told the City Commission during public comment that police trailers used in the city lacked required hitch safety pins and chains and urged the department to comply with state safety law, citing fatal accidents as reason for strict enforcement.
Mark Faucher said he had raised the issue previously and that the mayor’s stated lack of recollection was incorrect: “If we go back to our sitting meeting here, it was addressed, it's in the record… the deputy chief actually reviewed the pictures that I showed you.” Faucher described accidents in which trailers separated and caused fires and multiple deaths, and urged the city to spend “a hundred dollars, buy the pins, install the pins, get new chains where they're all severely rusted, and be done with it.” He said the state law “specifically states you will have chains and you'll have the pins in place according to the manufacturer.”
Commissioners and staff responded that the trailers had been inspected since the prior meeting. Commissioner Lauser said the vehicle had been reinspected and he believed the city’s equipment was in order. Later in the meeting Lauser added that if pins are not kept in trailers while parked that may be permissible: “If it's the fact that the pins aren't in the, in the trailers while they're parked, they don't have to be. The pins are kept at the Traffic Safety Office.”
Another commenter, Craig Murtha, said he performed a reinspection an hour before the meeting and told Faucher the trailers “did not pass, sir.” The record shows differing accounts of the inspection result during the meeting; commissioners did not direct formal action or make a motion to change department policy during the session.
Public comment closed with no commission vote or formal referral recorded on the matter.
