GREENBELT, Md. — Highway safety officials in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. inspected 35,764 commercial motor vehicles during this year’s Brake Safety Week — a seven-day inspection and enforcement initiative sponsored by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA).
The annual event, held this year on Aug. 22-28, is aimed at inspecting commercial motor vehicles roadside and identifying and removing any commercial motor vehicles with dangerous brake-related issues from our roadways, according to a CVSA news release issued on Wednesday.
In North America combined, a total of 35,764 commercial motor vehicles were inspected.
Twelve percent of those were restricted from travel because inspectors found critical, brake-related problems and placed them out of service.
“That also means that 88% of the commercial motor vehicles inspected throughout North America during Brake Safety Week did not have brake-related critical vehicle inspection item violations,” the news release pointed out.
“Vehicles that did not have any vehicle and driver out-of-service conditions during a Level I or Level V Inspection may have received a CVSA decal, which is a visual indicator to inspectors that the vehicle was recently inspected (valid for three months) and had no critical vehicle inspection item violations.”
Every year for Brake Safety Week, law enforcement jurisdictions with the CVSA conduct commercial motor vehicle and driver inspections at fixed weigh stations, temporary pop-up inspection sites and during roving roadway patrols, paying special attention to brake components and systems.
Participating jurisdictions capture and report data on inspections and the special focus area for that year. This year, the focus was on brake hose chafing violations.
“Properly functioning brakes may mean the difference between a catastrophic collision or the ability to avoid a crash,” CVSA President Captain John Broers, who is with the South Dakota Highway Patrol, said.
Brake-related violations accounted for eight out of the top 20 vehicle violations in 2020, according to the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s data.
And brake system and brake adjustment violations accounted for more out-of-service vehicle conditions than any other vehicle violation during CVSA’s three-day International Roadcheck inspection and enforcement initiative in May.
The out-of-service rate related to brakes in the U.S. was 13.5% out of the 28,694 commercial motor vehicles inspected, according to the CVSA.
In addition, inspectors in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. recorded 5,667 brake hose chafing violations, which are a common brake-related violation, whether out-of-service or not.
Inspectors reported brake hose chafing violations in five different categories, illustrating levels of chafing severity, including two which are out-of-service conditions, and submitted that data to CVSA.
The Trucker News Staff produces engaging content for not only TheTrucker.com, but also The Trucker Newspaper, which has been serving the trucking industry for more than 30 years. With a focus on drivers, the Trucker News Staff aims to provide relevant, objective content pertaining to the trucking segment of the transportation industry. The Trucker News Staff is based in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Raise the rates and driver and equipment shortages will begin a correction.
Where to store all the empty containers looking to be a big problem, they are just being dropped everywhere now where they find an empty storage yard