Brake Safety Week scheduled for late August

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance announced this year’s Brake Safety Week will be Aug. 25-31.

Brake Safety Week is a commercial motor vehicle and driver inspection and regulatory compliance enforcement initiative, a brake-safety awareness and outreach opportunity, and a brake-related inspection and violation data collection project.

The week is part of CVSA’s Operation Airbrake Program. The program has two events planned for this year: the Brake Safety Week in late August and a surprise one-day brake safety enforcement initiative that could be held anytime.

During the event, CVSA-certified inspectors will conduct routine commercial motor vehicle inspections throughout the week, focusing on brake systems and components. Commercial motor vehicles found to have brake-related out-of-service violations will be removed from roadways until those violations are corrected.

For this year’s Brake Safety Week, inspectors will focus on the condition of brake linings and pads. Brake lining and pad issues may result in vehicle violations and affect a motor carrier’s safety rating. The inspection procedure for air brakes is available on CVSA’s website.

In addition, some jurisdictions have performance-based brake testers and will be using them during Brake Safety Week. A PBBT is a machine that assesses the braking performance of a vehicle.

Educational outreach

Inspectors, motor carriers, and others in the industry also undergo educational efforts during Brake Safety Week.

In addition to educational outreach by law enforcement agencies, transportation safety organizations, and individual officers, CVSA aims to help prepare drivers, motor carriers, owner-operators, and mechanics for this year’s Brake Safety Week.

Data collection

Throughout Brake Safety Week, inspectors will capture data about brake inspections and violations and report that data directly to CVSA.

In addition to general inspection and violation data, CVSA will collect data about brake linings/pads, the focus area for this year’s Operation Safe Driver Week. PBBT jurisdictions will also submit PBBT-specific data. CVSA will collect and analyze all data submissions and report the results publicly later this year.

Brake-related violations comprise most of all out-of-service vehicle violations cited during roadside inspections. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s 2023 vehicle violation data, six out of the top 20 vehicle violations were brake-related. Last year’s CVSA International Roadcheck results showed that brake-system violations were the top vehicle violations, comprising 25.2% of all vehicle out-of-service violations during that three-day data snapshot of roadside inspections.