Air brake out of service rates steady: CVSA

WASHINGTON, (Sept. 18, 2003) — Despite similar numbers to 2002, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance has announced that this year’s Operation Air Brake campaign showed a significant difference in out of service rates between the annual scheduled event and a surprise inspection blitz earlier this summer.

Operation Air Brake is an annual 12-hour program sponsored by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators. Its goal is to decrease violations and incidents related to brakes by encouraging drivers and motor carriers to increase their knowledge of brake inspection and maintenance, compliance, and vehicle braking performance. This year’s event involved 14,665 roadside inspections — the largest total to date — throughout 45 jurisdictions in North America.

While the September 2003 out of service rates were essentially unchanged from the September 2002 rates, the CVSA reported 11 per cent of vehicles inspected were out-of-service for brake adjustment, 7.5 per cent for brake components, and 16.5 per cent total out of service for brakes. That’s compared to 13.2, 8.1, and 18 per cent for the same categories during an unscheduled campaign in May.

Manual slack adjusters comprised 26.2 per cent of the 119,978 total brakes inspected: 8.7 per cent of these were placed out-of-service for adjustment problems. The remainder were equipped with automatic slack adjusters, 3.7 per cent of which were placed out-of-service.