A record 60,562 road inspections were performed over a three-day period in June at 1,348 locations throughout North America. The effort was part of Roadcheck 2005, sponsored by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA). Though vehicle and driver out-of-service violations dropped, CVSA noted some troubling trends in the numbers for 2005.
In the U.S., 3.8% of the inspections conducted resulted in out-of-service conditions for hours of service violations. This was up from 3.44% in 2004. Given the larger number of inspections actually conducted, the percentage increase tells only part of the story.
For Canada, hours-of-service violations caused only 1.3% of drivers to be put out of service (down from 2.5% in 2004).
Of the out-of-service violations, hours of service accounted for 54.2% of the total violations, down from 61.6% in 2004. False logs tracked nearly even with the prior year at 12.1% (12.2% in 2004).
On the vehicle side, brake adjustments accounted for 30.1% of out-of-service (OOS) violations. Brake systems caused 25.2% of OOS violations. Safe loading violations fell from 9.3% in 2004 to 8.5% in 2005.
Examining the 5,241 hazardous materials violations, CVSA reported 19.6% of vehicles and 2.4% of drivers were placed out of service.
