2019 Roadcheck Nabs 17.9% of Vehicles and 4.2% of Drivers
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Commercial vehicle inspectors conducted more than 67,000 inspections during a stepped-up three-day enforcement effort in June, putting 12,019 commercial vehicles and 2,784 drivers out of service.
That represents a 17.9% overall vehicle out-of-service rate and 4.2% driver out-of-service rate.
The 2019 Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s International Roadcheck event was conducted June 4-6, during which more than 13,000 inspectors spent 72 hours identifying and removing unsafe heavy trucks and buses from the roadways in the U.S. and Canada.
This year’s special focus was on steering and suspension systems. Inspectors identified 408 steering violations (2.5% of all out-of-service vehicle violations) and 703 suspension violations (4.3% of all out-of-service vehicle violations) during event.
Nearly 46,000 of the total number of inspections were Level I inspections, where 21.5% or 9,817 of vehicles were placed out of service. Level I inspections are the most comprehensive.
CVSA said that the out-of-service rate for 45,400 Level I inspections was 21.6% in 2018 and 23% in 2017. The rate of drivers placed out of service for all Level I, II and III inspections was 3.9% in 2018 and 4.7% in 2017.
The vehicle portion of an inspection includes checking critical vehicle inspection items such as: brake systems; cargo securement; coupling devices; driveline/driveshaft; driver’s seat (missing); exhaust systems; frames; fuel systems; lighting devices (headlamps, tail lamps, stop lamps, turn signals and lamps/flags on projecting loads); steering mechanisms; suspensions; tires; van and open-top trailer bodies; wheels, rims and hubs; and windshield wipers.
The five most common vehicle violations detected by inspectors were for braking systems (4,578 or 28% of total out-of-service violations), tires and wheels (3,156 or 19.3%), brake adjustment (2,801 or 17.1%), cargo securement (1,991 or 12.2%) and lighting devices (1,875 or 11.5%).
The five most common driver violations were for hours of service (1,179 or 37.2% of total out-of-service violations), wrong class license (714 or 22.5%), false logs (467 or 14.7%), “other” violations (351 or 11.1%) and suspended license (232 or 7.3%).
Inspectors also discovered 748 seat belt violations, CVSA said. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s latest CMV seat belt drivers survey, the overall usage rate for drivers of medium- and heavy-duty trucks and motorcoaches was 86% in 2016, CVSA said.
Since its inception in 1988, more than 1.7 million roadside inspections have been conducted during the International Roadcheck event, CVSA said.
