A record number of vehicles stopped during the annual Roadcheck this June passed with no violations, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance reported recently.
Of the 57,785 inspections conducted during 72 hours in the United States, Canada and Mexico, a CVSA decal was placed on 27,749 commercial vehicles showing that no safety violations were found, the group announced.
That is the highest number of vehicles with no violations in the history of the annual Roadcheck.
“We think with each and every year, we do a better job of getting the word out to the industry of what’s going on,” said Steve Keppler, a spokesman for CVSA. “We think that that has an impact.”
Jim Johnston, president and CEO of OOIDA, said, “After 16 years and hundreds of millions of dollars invested in this effort, we would think it finally would show some progress. Although we attribute it more toward the efforts of truckers themselves to better comply with the regulations.”
June was the second OOIDA June Truck Safety Month, an effort by the 111,000-member association in which all truck drivers are encouraged to run in strict compliance with all federal and state regulations.
Keppler applauded industry efforts that are aimed at increasing compliance.
“We also like to say the industry’s doing a better job of focusing on themselves,” Keppler said.
Keppler said that the new hours-of-service regulations, which went into effect at the first of this year, also contributed to the high number of “no violation” trucks.
“It’s been such a big impact on the industry, I think that people are generally paying more attention to safe equipment,” he said.
In fact, only 3.44 percent of truck drivers stopped during the 2004 Roadcheck had HOS violations; in 2003, 3.69 percent had HOS violations.
The inspections also showed improvement in use of seat belts among commercial drivers. Inspectors found only 1.3 percent of all drivers inspected during the event were not wearing a safety belt.
However, not all the news from Roadcheck was good. Keppler said that in addition to the record number of trucks with no violations, CVSA also put a higher number of trucks out-of-service than last year.
“There’s always going to be a certain group of what are termed cowboys,” he said, those who “choose not to pay attention to safety.”
“With an industry that large, you’re always going to have your bad actors, and we like to say we’re doing a better job of finding those guys,” he added.
The 17th annual International 72-hour Roadcheck started June 8 after a kickoff event June 7 at an inspection facility on Interstate 40 westbound in West Memphis, AR – right across the Mississippi River from Memphis, TN. It ran through June 10.
OOIDA’s Director of Regulatory Affairs Rick Craig attended the kick-off event along with OOIDA General Vice President Woody Chambers and Paula Chambers, Eddyville, KY.
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance sponsors the annual Roadcheck events, with participation by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Transport Canada, the Research and Special Programs Administration and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (Mexico).
CVSA is the leading commercial vehicle safety enforcement organization in North America. Its members include enforcement agencies and industry representatives in Canada, Mexico and the United States. OOIDA has been a member of CVSA since the late ‘80s.
--by Mark H. Reddig, associate editor
Mark Reddig can be reached at mark_reddig@landlinemag.com.
