State transportation departments will join with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) for 72 hours of stepped-up roadside truck inspections June 4 to 6. Last year the annual Roadcheck program, which also extends into Canada and Mexico, conducted 74,072 truck and driver inspections, placing 20.9% of the vehicles out of service for mechanical problems and 4.6% of the drivers for various safety regulation infractions.
This year’s program will place special emphasis on motor coach inspections and overall traffic enforcement, according to CVSA.
Fleets should view the inspection blitz as an opportunity to improve their CSA scores, according to J.J. Keller & Assocs., a provider of safety services. “Your CSA scores are calculated based on your inspections and the violations on those inspections. The more good inspections you have — in other words, the more inspections you have with no violations — the better your scores will be,” said Tom Bray, J. J. Keller’s sr. transportation management editor. “If you can take advantage of it, Roadcheck is the perfect opportunity to pad your good inspection numbers.”
Roadside inspectors will be looking for proof that drivers are complying with hours-of-service and vehicle inspection regulations, as well as verifying that trucks meet current equipment safety requirements and are up-to-date on maintenance and inspections.