The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance has announced that the number of commercial trucks, buses and hazmat vehicles placed out-of-service during its 72-hour North American inspection campaign in June 6-8 decreased from 2005, but driver violations increased.
Roadcheck—a targeted enforcement campaign program on commercial vehicles organized by CVSA and joined by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and state and local commercial vehicle inspectors—in 2006 netted 60,357 inspections by 8,522 CVSA-certified inspectors in America, Canada and Mexico.
Of those vehicles inspected, 21.7% were placed out-of-service, down from 22.5% in 2005.
The number of drivers placed out-of-service increased to 5.6% from 4.4% in 2005. The most common citation to those drivers was hours-of-service violations (57.1%), followed by falsified records of duty status (12.4%) and licensing-related violations.
Safety belts were a key focus of the campaign, since the usage rate by commercial drivers is estimated to be 54% compared with 82% by automobile drivers. Only 2% of the drivers were cited for not wearing safety belts.
See Roadcheck inspectors on task
