CVSA Gears Up for Annual 'Roadcheck'
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) begins its annual Roadcheck event today at more than 1,500 locations across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Roadcheck is the largest targeted enforcement program on commercial vehicles in the world. The event mobilizes thousands of federal, state, provincial, and local inspectors to conduct comprehensive North American Standard (NAS) Level I Inspections and other related roadside enforcement activities. The inspections will be conducted through June 10.
“ATA (American Trucking Association) has supported CVSA’s annual Roadcheck since its inception and has worked cooperatively with CVSA to determine emphasis areas,” said Rob Abbott, vice president of Safety Policy for ATA. “Roadcheck is a very beneficial program since it spotlights the importance of roadside enforcement and focuses limited state and local resources on unsafe operators. ATA looks forward to this year’s Roadcheck results which we anticipate will reflect the industry’s improved safety record, as they have consistently done in years past.”
The majority of Roadcheck safety inspections are not performed at random. Inspectors target trucks and drivers for inspection based upon the safety record or previous inspection records of the motor carrier, the driver, or upon the observation skills of the trained inspectors.
Last year, 9,683 CVSA and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration certified inspectors at 2,145 locations across North America performed 72,255 truck and bus inspections. Of that total, there were 56,486 NAS Level I inspections, the most comprehensive roadside inspection. Roadcheck 2009’s record total of overall inspections and Level I inspections showed significant declines in vehicle and driver OOS rates, as well as a significant drop in safety belt violations. Data show the highest overall vehicle compliance rate—80.4 percent—since 1996, and the highest overall driver compliance rate—95.7 percent—ever. For NAS Level I inspections, the compliance rates of 77.8 percent (vehicles) and 96.1 percent (drivers) were both records for Roadcheck, and represented 7.1 and 20.4 percent improvements respectively over 2008’s totals.