Results from Roadcheck 2011, the three-day commercial vehicle safety enforcement and education campaign organized annually by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, reveal that the commercial motor carrier and motor coach industries continue to improve the maintenance and safety of their operations, with overall out-of-service rates being the lowest since Roadcheck began in 1991, CVSA said Thursday, July 7.
“Although overall out-of-service rates are at record lows, there is room for improvement until the roads are free from vehicle and driver violations,” says Stephen Keppler, CVSA executive director. “Events that focus on ensuring vehicles and drivers are complying with the law, like Roadcheck and all roadside inspections, draw critical attention to out-of-service rates and are shown to also impact crash reductions.”
Nearly 8,000 CVSA and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration certified inspectors at 2,550 locations across North America performed 70,712 truck and bus inspections in the 72-hour period. Inspectors focused on the North American Standard Level I inspection, motorcoach inspections, hours-of-service logbooks and household goods carriers.
Once again, logbook violations lead overwhelmingly as a percentage of all driver violations cited (50.6 percent of all driver out-of-service violations); inspectors also queried drivers of their use of electronic logging devices, which were being used by 14 percent of them. An additional emphasis was placed on identifying HHG carriers operating “under-the-radar” by using improperly marked rental vehicles and/or operating as a for-hire property carrier rather than an HHG carrier. The 12 states that participated in the HHG focus activity identified 32 carriers that required enforcement action.
Roadcheck data from 2011 show the overall vehicle compliance rate at 80.7 percent (80.0 percent in 2010), with an overall driver compliance rate of 95.8 percent (95.6 percent from last year). For NAS Level I inspections, the compliance rates were up to 77.2 percent for vehicles (76.7 percent in 2010) and 96.3 percent for drivers (unchanged from 2010). In addition, there were 296 fewer safety belt violations in 2011 (863 vs. 1,159 in 2010).
Inspections of passenger-carrying vehicles found a vehicle compliance rate of 91.3 percent in 2011 vs. 91.0 percent in 2010. The motorcoach driver compliance rate was 97.4 percent – in 2010, it was 96.4 percent. Hazardous materials inspections resulted in a vehicle compliance rate of 82.1 percent (83.7 percent in 2010) and driver compliance rate of 97.5 percent (unchanged from previous year). There were 29,609 CVSA decals issued to vehicles that passed the inspection, up from the number issued in 2010 (26,605).
CVSA sponsors Roadcheck each year with FMCSA, Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Transport Canada and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation. During Roadcheck 2011, about 16 trucks or buses were inspected, on average, every minute for the 72 hours of the event, from June 7-9, occurring from Canada to Mexico. “Roadcheck is about law enforcement partners throughout North America working together for greater truck and bus safety,” says Anne Ferro, FMCSA administrator.
