The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) released reports of their annual 72-hour International Roadcheck campaign on Oct. 20 stating that inspectors placed 21.5 percent of trucks inspected out of service, along with 3.4 percent of drivers. These numbers represent 9,080 trucks and 1,436 drivers.
Hours of service violations and logbook violations led the driver-related out-of-service violations, while brake violations accounted for nearly half of the vehicle out-of-service orders issued during the week.
A total of 62,796 inspections were performed across North America during the event, 42,236 of which were North American Standard Level I inspections, the most comprehensive inspection level. CVSA says the number of total inspections and Level I inspections were down in 2016, and the vehicle and driver out-of-service percentages are at record lows for the annual Roadcheck event.
Brake violations took the lead in vehicle out-of-service orders, accounting for 45.7 percent (or approximately 4,111 trucks) of all out-of-service orders (OOS) issued during the three-day event held June 7-9. Other vehicle-related violations included tires and wheels (18.5 percent of OOS orders), lighting devices (11.8 percent) and cargo securement (6.1 percent). Less than 5 percent of the OOS orders included suspensions, steering mechanisms, frames, driveshaft, coupling devices, fuel systems and exhaust systems.
For drivers, hours-of-service and false logs accounted for 46.8 percent and 16.4 percent of out-of-service orders, respectively, for a total of approximately 908 drivers out of the 1,436 total drivers that were placed out-of-service. The number of drivers shut down for drugs and alcohol dropped from 2015’s total from 2.1 percent to 1 percent this year. Other driver-related violations included improper endorsement (7.7 percent of OOS orders) and disqualified driver (6.2 percent).
In addition, 13 percent of trucks hauling hazardous materials were placed out-of-service. The top hazmat violations were placarding (33.8 percent), shipping papers (27.6 percent) and loading and securement (26.2 percent).
In 2015, 3.6 percent of drivers and 21.6 percent of vehicles that received Level I inspections were placed out-of-service.