Nearly one in seven commercial vehicles flunked brake inspections during the annual Brake Safety Week last fall.
During those inspections, 4,995 vehicles were removed from service until the faults could be corrected, said a news release from the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.
Enforcement personnel in 57 jurisdictions in the U.S. and Canada inspected 35,080 vehicles for brake violations during the initiative from Sept. 16 to 22, 2018. A large majority had no “brake-related out-of-service conditions,” the release said. However, in the remaining 14.1 percent, “inspectors found critical vehicle inspection items in the brake systems.”
The safety alliance’s 72-hour International Roadcheck in June 2018 had found brake violations to be “the top vehicle out-of-service violation.” Meanwhile, a U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data snapshot — dated Sept. 28, 2018 — reported 1.04 million brake-related violations out of 2.38 million inspections, with a portion of those accounting for seven of the top 20 vehicle violations, the alliance news release noted.
This year’s Brake Safety Week attempted to address those violations by raising awareness in order to reduce brake-related crashes.
The inspections also captured antilock braking system violations. For example, of 26,142 air-brake power units requiring ABS, 8.3 percent had ABS violations.
“Whether you’re driving a commercial motor vehicle or inspecting one, we all know the importance of properly functioning brakes,” safety alliance president Lt. Scott Carnegie, of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, said in the release.
The alliance partnered with the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators on Brake Safety Week as part of the alliance’s Operation Airbrake Program.