Every year, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) holds an International Roadcheck to inspect commercial vehicles and ensure maximum safety on the highways. This year’s inspection ran from June 4-6 and CVSA released the results of the 72-hour event at the end of August this year. Compared to the previous year, the results were mostly positive, but experts stress there is still immense room for improvement.

Digging into the Statistics of the International Roadcheck

During this year’s Roadcheck, CVSA inspected 67,072 vehicles across Canada and the United States. Of those vehicles, inspectors issued out of service orders to 12,019 of them. In addition, 2784 drivers received the same notice for driver-related infractions. That brings the total out of service vehicles to 17.9% and out of service drivers to 4.2%. Compared to the previous year, trucks fared better as 21.6% received an out of service notice in 2018’s Roadcheck event. However, driver-related violations increased slightly as only 3.9% of drivers received the notice in 2018.

Top Out of Service Vehicle Conditions

This year’s event highlighted steering and suspension violations, but the focus didn’t affect how investigators performed their inspections. While they noted 408 steering violations and 703 suspension violations, those only accounted for 2.5% and 4.3% of out of service notices respectively. The following were the leading infractions that sidelined vehicles:

  1. Braking systems: 4578 violations, 28%
  2. Tires and Wheels: 3156, 19.3%
  3. Brake adjustment: 2801, 17.1%
  4. Cargo securement: 1991, 12.2%
  5. Lighting devices: 1875, 11.5%

Top Out of Service Driver Conditions

For drivers placed out of service, the following were the leading violations:

  1. Hours of Service (HOS): 1179, 37.2%
  2. Incorrect class license: 714, 22.5%
  3. False logs: 467, 14.7%
  4. Other: 351, 11.1%
  5. Suspended license: 232, 7.3%

Out of service violations have a profoundly negative effect on Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) scores. If a CSA score dips too low, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) will initiate interventions that are time-consuming and can eat into a fleet’s bottom line. The best method of defense is to ensure drivers are operating their trucks in a safe manner and that all fleet vehicles are compliant with safety regulations. DriverCheck knows this is easier said than done. Contact us to learn how our telematics solutions can help improve your fleet’s safety metrics.