With another Brake Safety Week in the books, roughly 87% of all commercial motor vehicles pulled over during this year’s event passed their inspections with no brake-related critical violations.
The annual inspection and enforcement blitz is organized by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance – a nonprofit organization of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal commercial motor vehicle safety officials and industry representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico.
According to the group, the goal of Brake Safety Week is to “reduce the number of crashes caused by faulty braking systems on commercial motor vehicles by conducting roadside inspections and educating drivers, mechanics, owner-operators and others on the importance of proper brake inspection, maintenance and operation.”
This year’s event was held Aug. 25-31. During the weeklong safety blitz, a total of 16,725 commercial motor vehicle inspections were conducted across North America. From those inspections, a total of 2,149 (12.8%) commercial vehicles were placed out of service due to brake-related violations.
Some examples of brake-related violations that automatically place a vehicle out of service include:
- broken brake drums
- loose air tanks
- corroded holes in a spring brake housing
- inoperative tractor protection valves
The focus area for this year’s event was lining/pad violations, with inspectors looking for loose, missing or worn brake lining/pads, as well as cracks, voids or contamination. A total of 382 power units and 272 towed units were cited for lining/pad violations.
According to CVSA, 63.1% of the commercial motor vehicles placed out of service during Brake Safety Week had stand-alone out-of-service brake violations, with just over 10% having steering axle brake out-of-service violations.
In addition to those violations that will automatically place a vehicle out of service, certain service brake violations can combine to put vehicles out of service under the 20% brake criterion – which places a vehicle out of service if the number of defective brakes is equal to or greater than 20% of the service brakes on the vehicle or combination. Some examples of these violations include cracked linings, brake adjustment or loose chambers.
Of the 2,375 commercial motor vehicles that were placed out of service, 1,216 (56.6%) failed the 20% defective brakes criterion.
The results are just slightly worse than last year’s enforcement blitz, which saw 12.6% of the 18,875 inspections conducted result in out-of-service placement.
Next year’s Brake Safety Week is scheduled for Aug. 24-30. Results from other brake safety initiatives by CVSA can be found here. LL
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