With the bridge showing signs of wear and tear, the Department of Transportation hopes to replace it by the end of 2012.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

PAWTUCKET — Sixteen months after the state imposed weight limits and stiff fines on truckers who drive across the deteriorating Pawtucket River Bridge, motorists may be surprised to see state police still pulling over the big rigs.

More than 5,600 truckers have been charged with violating the bridge’s weight postings since November 2007, and the state police say they had issued more than $3 million in fines by the end of last month.

The number of truckers being caught illegally crossing the bridge isn’t dropping, suggesting that the situation may not change any time soon. In February, the last month of data available, the police charged 441 drivers with ignoring the weight limit signs, among other violations.

The number of trucks pulled over by the state police comes as a shock to passersby, the police and people in the trucking industry.“Isn’t that incredible?” said John Atwood, president of the Rhode Island Trucking Association. “I can’t figure it out for the life of me.”

It’s not for lack of warning. “It’s very well posted,” said Sgt. David J. Medeiros, who heads the state police Commercial Enforcement Unit. Atwood agrees.

In late 2007, state Department of Transportation inspectors found that rust had compromised the strength of the bridge’s steel beams and other supports. The state imposed a 22-ton weight limit at the end of November 2007, effectively banning large trucks from the bridge. The DOT also closed an entrance ramp and part of a lane on the northbound side, added steel supports underneath to hold up the rest of that lane and diverted traffic from the bridge’s edges. Signs banning trucks heavier than the weight limit went up on highways leading to the bridge.

If truckers don’t take other routes, such as Route 295 and Route 146, they are required to use detours through local Pawtucket streets. The vast majority of truckers take the detours, reducing truck traffic on that section of highway to the delight of commuters. But some don’t.

State police statistics show the initial intensive enforcement stopped 1,800 trucks in slightly more than a month at the end of 2007. Almost 500 were cited for the most frequent violation, failure to obey a traffic control device, the bridge posting. The fine for that is $85, applied to the truck driver. Thousands of dollars in additional fines were imposed on trucking companies for overweight trucks.

In the months afterward, inspections found more deterioration in the bridge’s beams, and the weight limit was reduced to 18 tons. Partly to make enforcement easier, the state imposed another restriction: Starting in August, it banned single vehicles with more than two axles and combination vehicles with more than two axles per unit. That legislation also imposed $3,000 fines for violating the axle restriction for the first time and up to $5,000 for repeat violations.

Before that, the state police had to pull over trucks that they suspected violated the weight limit and weigh them to prove it. Afterward, although they have continued to enforce the weight limits, too, they could also identify violators by counting axles.

Atwood said he has gotten calls from distant trucking companies asking advice about fighting the fines their drivers have gotten. He tells them that their choice is: “get an attorney or a corporate officer has to come down here” and go to traffic court.

Officials have said from the beginning that the weight limitations and fines were not imposed to raise money, which goes into the state’s fund for general expenses, but rather to protect the bridge until it can be replaced.

The DOT has said repeatedly that the bridge is safe and that a few trucks heavier than the weight limit won’t endanger it. But they say that further pounding could lead to even lower weight limits or even force closing of the bridge, which would cause a major regional disruption.

The DOT hopes to advertise for bids this summer, start construction in the fall and complete the new bridge by the end of 2012 at an estimated cost of $90 million. A $1.9-million congressional earmark announced last week by U.S. Sen. Jack Reed will contribute to the rebuilding.

The idea was to enforce the weight limit vigorously at the outset, which would lead to continuing compliance. That didn’t happen, the statistics show.

The rules on using the bridge and the level of enforcement have changed and the number of violations and the amount of fines have varied from month to month. But the total number of violations has remained fairly steady, at more than 400 per month, since last summer.

The fines for overweight violations trailed off and were largely replaced by fines for axle violations after that rule went into effect in August. But the amount of fines imposed has also stabilized, since November, at about $200,000 per month.

The number of pulled-over trucks regularly prompts some version of the question, “Why don’t they figure it out?”

If truckers can afford it, there’s a wonderland of software available offering help, not just to avoid getting lost, but also to avoid tickets. For example, ALK Technologies, which sells PC*Miler, says it will choose the optimal route based on a truck’s height, width, length and weight, avoiding trouble with low bridges, one-way roads, left-turn restrictions, roads where trucks aren’t allowed –– and load limits.

It’s certainly not a secret that driving a big truck across the Pawtucket River Bridge is looking for trouble. But one factor may be that the truckers being fined for crossing the bridge illegally haven’t “figured it out” because they haven’t been there before: A 100-percent driver turnover rate has been reported in some sectors of the trucking industry.

However, once a driver gets near the bridge, the DOT’s multiple, prominent signs warning of the weight restriction and the big fines seem hard to miss.

“There’s no excuse, there really isn’t any,” Atwood said.

blandis@projo.com