On Tuesday, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) released the results from the agency’s North American brake blitz.
This year, the CVSA’s Brake Safety Week took place August 20 — 26 in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
The area of emphasis for Brake Safety Week 2023 was lining/pad violations.
During the weeklong effort, officers conducted 18,875 commercial motor vehicle (CMV) inspections. Most CMVs — 87.4% — did not have any brake-related out-of-service violations.
Of those inspected CMVs, 2,375 (12.6%) were removed from roadways because inspectors discovered brake-related out-of-service violations.
Of the CMVs placed out of service, 295 (12.4%) had steering axle brake violations, 1,127 (47.5%) had stand-alone brake violations and 1,394 (58.7%) 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, according to the CVSA.
In the U.S., 18,031 CMVs were inspected during Brake Safety Week. Of these inspected CMVs, 2,240 (12.4%) had brake-related out-of-service violations. Inspectors found lining/pad violations on 352 power units and 236 towed units.
The next CVSA Brake Safety Week blitz is scheduled for August 25 — 31, 2024.