The trucking company that was told to “stay far, far away from Burma Rd.” when it last appeared in District Court didn’t come anywhere near Schuylkill County Courthouse on Wednesday.
Twin Turbo Trucking Corp., of Paramus, NJ, filed appeals on decisions handed down over the last year by Magisterial District Court Judge David Plachko.
The company was found guilty of having vehicles with numerous safety and records violations at BRADS Landfill on Burma Rd. in Blythe Township.
However, at a scheduled appeals hearing in Courtroom 5 at the Courthouse on Wednesday, which the company requested, representatives of Twin Turbo were a no-show. That means they’ll have to pay the fines associated with the various summary offenses levied on the company that resulted from safety inspections conducted.
When Twin Turbo last appeared before Plachko in May, the judge – who spoke out against the dangerous truck traffic coming to and from BRADS Landfill at a public hearing hosted by the state’s Dept. of Environmental Protection last year in Saint Clair – warned Carla Balerio, the owner of 7 Win Turbo, that her and husband Jesus’ company, Twin Turbo Trucking, need to get their vehicles in compliance with safety regulations or “stay far, far away from Burma Rd.”
Twin Turbo and 7 Win Turbo are essentially the same company, each owned by one of the Balerio husband-and-wife team. The Twin Turbo logo on vehicles is slightly altered to appear as 7 Win Turbo.
“It’s going to be a terrible day when one of your trucks goes out of control and wipes out a family,” the judge said in May.
The summary trial appeals scheduled for Schuylkill County Court were set to argue against the violations and fines imposed on Twin Turbo. As a result of the no-show, the company will be forced to pay thousands of dollars in fines.
Back in May, the companies were ordered by Plachko to pay more than $8,000 in fines.
During testimony during that May court appearance, State Police inspectors told the judge that Twin Turbo trucks had flat and bald tires, defective brakes, inoperable turn signals and headlamps, loose lug nuts, the lack of fire extinguishers, and debris falling from the back of a vehicle. A tire measured 0 PSI during one inspection.
On one truck, the driver’s side door could not be opened from the outside. Some of these violations were not corrected from an inspection the previous month.
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