Brake Safety Week is Aug 21 – 27th

CVSA-certified enforcement personnel will conduct roadside inspections on commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) as part of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s (CVSA) Brake Safety Week, Aug 21-27, to identify and remove CMVs with critical brake violations from our roadways and to call attention to the dangers of faulty brake systems.

Properly functioning brake systems are crucial to safe CMV operation. Brakes must be routinely inspected and carefully and consistently maintained so they operate and perform to the manufacturer’s specifications throughout the life of the vehicle. Improperly installed or poorly maintained brake systems can reduce braking efficiency, posing serious risk to public safety on our roadways.

Data and research are clear:

According to the U.S Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Large Truck Crash Causation (LTCC) Study, 32.7 percent of large trucks with pre-crash violations had brake problems. Brake-related violations comprised the largest percentage of out-of-service vehicle violations cited during last year’s International Roadcheck: https://www.cvsa.org/news/2021-roadcheck-results/

The LTCC Study’s relative risk analysis indicated that large trucks involved in a crash where the braking capacity of the truck was critical were 50 percent more likely to have a brake violation than were trucks involved in crashes where the truck’s braking capacity was not critical. According to the LTCC Study, of the trucks involved in brake-critical crashes, 45.5 percent had brake violations, compared with 29.9 percent of trucks involved in crashes of the same type where the braking was not relevant.

Results from last year’s Brake Safety Day found that 20.9 percent of all inspections conducted during that one-day brake safety initiative resulted in a CMV being placed out of service for brake-related violations.