Inspectors check more than 67,000 CMVs during June campaign, put more than 12,000 vehicles, 2,700 drivers out of service

From CVSA

During the middle of the first week in June inspectors for the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance conducted 67,072 inspections on commercial motor vehicles in Canada and the U.S. as part of the group’s annual International Roadcheck.

During those three days, June 4-6, 12,019 vehicles were removed from roadways due to critical vehicle inspection item violations and 2,784 drivers were placed out of service for driver-related violations. That’s a 17.9 percent overall vehicle out-of-service rate and a 4.2 percent driver out-of-service rate.

International Roadcheck is an annual 72-hour inspection and enforcement safety event that identifies and removes unsafe commercial motor vehicles and drivers from our roadways.

If an inspector identifies critical vehicle inspection item out-of-service violations, the vehicle will be rendered out of service and those mechanical defects must be corrected before the vehicle is permitted to proceed. A driver found to be in violation of the driver-related conditions in the CVSA North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria will be placed out of service until the condition can be rectified.

During International Roadcheck, inspectors primarily conducted one of three inspection levels:

The North American Standard (NAS) Level I Inspection, a 37-step procedure that includes an examination of driver operating requirements and vehicle mechanical fitness; the Level II that typically includes everything that can be inspected without physically getting under the vehicle; and the Level III that is a review of driver requirements, such as the license, additional operating credentials, applicable cargo and vehicle documentation, record of duty status, seat belt usage, etc.

A total of 45,568 Level I Inspections were conducted; 21.5% (9,817) of those inspected vehicles were placed out of service. There were 60,058 Level I, II and III Inspections conducted in the U.S, 7,014 in Canada; the total vehicle out-of-service rate in the U.S. was 17.7, 19.9 percent in Canada. A 4.4 percent of drivers inspected in the U.S. were placed out of service, 2 percent of drivers inspected in Canada.

This year’s focus was on steering and suspension systems. While checking those vehicle components is always part of the North American Standard Inspection, CVSA selected steering components and suspension systems as a reminder of their importance to vehicle safety and fitness.

Inspectors identified 408 steering (2.5% of all out-of-service vehicle violations) and 703 suspension (4.3% of all out-of-service vehicle violations) out-of-service vehicle conditions during the program period.

Here's the breakdown:

The top driver out-of-service violation was for hours of service, but its 37.2 percent of overall driver OOS violations marked a six percent decline from the year before.

Inspectors also discovered 748 seat belt violations. According to FMCSA’s latest Seat Belt Usage by Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers Survey, the overall safety belt usage rate for drivers of medium- and heavy-duty trucks and motor coaches was 86 percent in 2016.

Here is a breakdown:

A total of 3,851 CMVs hauling hazardous materials/dangerous goods were inspected. In addition to the standard checks, inspectors checked for compliance of shipping papers, placarding, marking, labeling, packaging and loading.

There were 527 HM/DG vehicles with out-of-service conditions (13.7 percent). There were 52 HM/DG drivers placed out of service (1.4 percent). That was 13.2 percent of vehicles in the U.S., 18.4 percent in Canada; 1.2 percent of U.S. drivers were placed out of service, 2.9 percent in Canada.

Here is a breakdown:

Since its inception in 1988, more than 1.7 million roadside inspections have been conducted during International Roadcheck campaigns