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Friday, August 09, 2002

By Lori Shontz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the American Trucking Associations fielded calls from truckers who wanted to show their patriotism by putting flag decals on their rigs.

Now, they will be able to make a more substantial contribution to the country -- being on alert for terrorists.

Truckers participating in Highway Watch, an American Trucking Associations program that expanded yesterday into Pennsylvania, will be trained to look for anything out of the ordinary. They will call a toll-free number to report suspicious activity, and operators will notify the appropriate state authorities.

Ron Brown, a retired intelligence officer and senior associate with Total Security Services, which is assisting with the program, compares professional truck drivers to FBI agents who learn to spot counterfeit money.

"They study the real money, so they know when the false comes up," Brown said. "Drivers who know the roads, the routes they take, what the routine is -- if they see something that doesn't look right, they'll be in a position to notice it."

Potential red flags could be a car parked near their terminal for several days, someone taking photographs around the perimeter of a terminal or a truck parked under a bridge on a sunny day. Trainers said terrorists rehearse before carrying out violence, and with 3 million truck drivers watching for such signs, lives could be saved.

"Until 9/11, truck bombs killed more American citizens than any other form of terrorist activity," Brown said. "And around the world more people have been killed by truck bombs than any other means."

The list of examples includes the 1983 attack on a Marine barracks in Beirut, the 1996 attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and the 1998 American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed a total of 224 people, mostly Africans.

In the United States, the 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people.

Brown said the trucks were effective because they were so ordinary.

"In the embassies, they used trucks that looked like the water carriers, the same that were in the cities," he said. "They were not, but they looked familiar.

"In Saudi Arabia, it was a fuel truck, either borrowed or stolen or bought, and there are a lot of fuel trucks in Saudi Arabia, and it arrived at a time they were expecting a fuel delivery. The only tip-off was that the driver got out of the car and ran away."

At a two-hour training seminar in Camp Hill, Cumberland County, yesterday, participants spent the first hour learning about safety, the second about terrorism.

"Trucks are part of the infrastructure. They're driving on the highways, over the bridges, through the tunnels," said Ron Uriah, vice president of safety for Pittsburgh-based Pitt Ohio Express. "They should certainly solicit drivers to be suspicious.

"Believe me, at Pitt Ohio alone we drive 65 million miles a year," he added. "That's a lot of trucks out there every day on the highways, a lot of trucks on the highway looking out for safety."

The program has evolved from Pike Watch, a former Pennsylvania program in which truck drivers were encouraged to call if they saw an accident, abandoned vehicle or hazardous road conditions, and a similar program in Virginia called Road Watch.

Highway Watch, which began in 1998, is funded by a grant from the Federation of Motor Carrier Safety. John Willard, spokesman for the American Trucking Associations, said the organization recently finished spending a $275,000 grant from 2000 and received another grant of $500,000 for 2002.

The program was expanded to help with homeland security after Sept. 11.

Pennsylvania is the 13th state to join the program, following Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia.

Organizers expect the program to eventually be active in all 50 states.

"For a terrorist attack to be successful, everything over a long time has to go right," Brown said. "We only need to foul them up in one area, so let's try to do that."

Lori Shontz can be reached at lshontz@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1722.