Enforcement officials inspected 16,725 commercial motor vehicles in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. and issued 2,149 brake-related out-of-service (OOS) violations, for an OOS rate of 12.8%, during the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) 2024 North American Brake Safety Week, which ran Aug. 25-31.
Of the 2,149 CMVs placed out of service, 1,355 (63.1%) had stand-alone out-of-service brake violations and 217 (10.1%) had steering axle brake out-of-service violations, CVSA reported. Also, 1,216 (56.6%) failed the 20% defective brakes criterion, which states that a vehicle is 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.
A vehicle is placed out of service when critical vehicle inspection items are identified during an inspection as conditions found in the North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria. When a vehicle is placed out of service, it is restricted from further travel until all OOS violations are corrected. CVSA’s OOS criteria identifies critical vehicle inspection items and details the criteria that prohibit a motor carrier or driver from operating a commercial motor vehicle until the violations have been addressed.
The focus area for this year’s Brake Safety Week was on lining/pad violations. Throughout the week, inspectors looked for loose, missing or worn brake lining/pads, as well as cracks, voids, or contamination. Inspectors found 382 lining/pad violations on power (tractor) units and 272 on towed (trailer) units, for a total of 654 brake lining/pad violations.
Sixty-one jurisdictions participated in this year’s Brake Safety Week.
- In Canada, inspectors conducted 1,926 inspections and discovered 243 brake-related OOS violations, which is a 12.6% out-of-service rate. Forty-four power units and 49 trailers had lining/pad violations.
- In Mexico, inspectors conducted 107 inspections and discovered six brake-related OOS violations, which is a 5.6% out-of-service rate, CVSA said. One power unit and five trailing units had lining/pad violations.
- In the U.S., inspectors conducted 14,692 inspections and discovered 1,900 brake-related OOS violations, which is a 12.9% OOS rate. Lining/pad violations were found on 310 power units and 172 trailers.
Eighteen states with performance-based brake testers (PBBT) participated in this year’s Brake Safety Week by conducting 452 inspections using their PBBTs. There were 26 failures, which is a 5.75% OOS rate.