The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) has a big brake check planned for truckers in a matter of days.

This year’s CVSA Brake Safety Week will take place August 22 — 28. The area of special emphasis for this year’s effort is on hoses and tubing.

During the week-long enforcement effort, commercial vehicle inspectors with law enforcement agencies across the country will team up to inspect trucks with a focus on the vehicle’s brake systems and components. Inspectors will be compiling data on hoses and tubing to submit to the CVSA.

The CVSA also shared several key statistics on brake violations:

• Brake system and brake adjustment violations accounted for more vehicle violations than any other vehicle violation category, accounting for 38.6% of all vehicle out-of-service conditions, during last year’s three-day International Roadcheck inspection and enforcement initiative.
• “Brake system” was the third most cited vehicle-related factor in fatal commercial motor vehicle and passenger vehicle crashes, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) latest “Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts” report.
• Brake-related violations accounted for eight out of the top 20 vehicle violations in 2020, according to FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Management Information System.
• During last year’s Brake Safety Week, 12% of the 43,565 commercial motor vehicles inspected were placed out of service for brake-related violations.

The CVSA notes that “the dates for Brake Safety Week are shared in advance to remind motor carriers, drivers and commercial motor vehicle mechanics/technicians to proactively check and service their vehicles to ensure every commercial motor vehicle traveling on our roadways is safe, mechanically fit and compliant. Recent research has shown that announcing enforcement campaigns ahead of time improves overall compliance better than surprise enforcement campaigns and for longer periods after the event.”

In addition to Brake Safety Week, the CVSA also conducted a surprise one day brake safety enforcement initiative on May 26, 2021.

During the single day effort, inspectors in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. conducted 10,091 inspections and placed 1,273 vehicles out of service for brake violations.