Three-day commercial road safety blitz launches throughout North America

A major commercial road safety blitz event began Tuesday, with 10,000 federal, state, provincial and local inspectors participating across North America.

The 72-hour blitz, Roadcheck 2013, is spearheaded by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, and is taking place across 1,500 locations, where inspectors will conduct comprehensive North American Standard Level I Inspections.

The inspectors will look at trucks, tractor-trailers, buses and motorcoaches, and submit inspection records to their state, provincial and federal jurisdiction systems for analyses, according to CVSA.

The inspections will look for correct driver qualifications, mechanical fitness and complete daily inspection reports and logs.

The blitz also focuses on proper securement of cargo. According to the CVSA, about one in ten out-of-service violations issued during Roadcheck are for improper loading, also known as improper cargo securement.

“These violations are serious because the loss of any article of cargo onto the roadway becomes an imminent danger to other motorists,” the organization said. “Meanwhile, a shifting of a load upon or within the vehicle itself can cause vehicle instability and loss of control.

Drivers are responsible for the securement of the proper loading of the cargo they carry, so even if they don’t load the vehicle themselves, they need to be aware of the proper loading procedures and regulations for what they carry.”

The CVSA compares overall inspection results with past years and maintains current results to help identify trends and to measure program effectiveness, its statement noted.

“Roadcheck gives the Alliance and its members a powerful and high-visibility mechanism to spotlight the critical role of comprehensive commercial vehicle driver and vehicle safety inspections to prevent roadway tragedies,” noted CVSA president Mark Savage, also a major with the Colorado State Patrol.

“In addition to our U.S. kick-off for Roadcheck, we are pleased to report that CVSA is also holding an official launch event in Canada,” he added. “This is the first time an international Roadcheck kick-off event will take place on Canadian soil.”

That event will be held Wednesday in Niagara Falls, Ont., and Savage will join officials from the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and local law enforcement.

“Ontario has some of the toughest commercial vehicle laws and with decades of effective enforcement and a successful partnership with the CVSA Roadcheck, Ontario’s roads are among the safest in North America,” Glen Murray, Ontario’s minister of transportation noted in a statement.

More than 55,000 bus and truck companies operate in Ontario, and more than 100,000 commercial vehicle safety inspections were conducted in the province last year, according to the provincial government. About $1.2 trillion in goods are moved by trucks on Ontario roads each year, it also says.

New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are also participating in the event. New Brunswick’s Commercial Vehicle Enforcement unit in its public safety department will hold the event at the westbound scales at Salisbury.

Nova Scotia will take part at Amherst in the east bound lanes, and will work closely with New Brunswick throughout the event.

During last year’s event, 232 vehicles were inspected in New Brunswick, and more than 6,900 throughout Canada. A total of 27 motorcoaches were also inspected, with eight being placed out of service.

Other participants  include the RCMP, the Canada Food Inspection Agency, Transport Canada (Transportation of Dangerous Goods inspectors), National Safety Code auditors, the departments of Finance and Transportation and Infrastructure, and trucking industry representatives.

The FMSCA  has also  provided quick reference visor cards to each state and province, for distribution to drivers during Roadcheck.

They include information about the new Hours-of-Service requirements that take effect July 1, especially important as driver fatigue is a contributor to crashes, the CVSA said.