Roadcheck Shows Improved Safety Compliance, CVSA Says
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance said that its recent Roadcheck ’08 three-day safety check yielded the lowest out-of-service rate in two decades.
The 23.9% out-of-service rate for Level I inspections “is the principal barometer used to measure compliance and it is the lowest we've seen in the 21-year history of Roadcheck,” said Stephen Campbell, CVSA’s executive director.
“It is clear the safety message is being heard and that the increased enforcement presence is making a difference. We appreciate the industry’s continued commitment to make safety its top priority not just during Roadcheck, but throughout the entire year,” he said in a statement.
Roadcheck ’08 ran from June 3-5, during which CVSA and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration-certified inspectors at 1,683 locations performed 67,931 truck and bus inspections across North America.
Of those 52,345 of the total were North American Standard Level I inspections, the most comprehensive roadside inspection.
Both the total number of inspections and Level I inspections were records for the annual Roadcheck event, CVSA said, and 2008 saw significant positive gains in out of service rates for most vehicle and driver types.
For drivers, the 5.3% overall out-of-service rate was a 14.5% improvement over last year, and there was a “significant improvement in hours-of-service compliance rates, reversing a trend from the past several years,” CVSA said.
The number of safety belt violations rose significantly this year, to 1,226 from 829 last year.
Brakes continue to be the dominating vehicle out of service defect, comprising 52.6% of the total vehicle defects. The percentage of vehicle out-of-service defects that were brake-related has declined noticeably over the last few years, down from a high of 56.6% in 2004.
CVSA sponsors Roadcheck each year with FMCSA, the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Transport Canada and Mexico’s Secretariat of Communications and Transportation.
