CVSA schedules 2018 International Roadcheck for June
Every year, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance conducts a 72-hour International Roadcheck across the country, where inspectors stop commercial truck drivers and bus drivers at random and check for compliance with safety guidelines. Truckers in Louisiana should know that this year’s inspection spree will be conducted from June 5 to June 7 and that the CVSA will be conducting the most thorough inspections possible, Level I inspections.
This means that the inspections will cover both driver compliance and vehicle-related compliance. A special point of focus for the CVSA this year is hours-of-service violations. With the U.S. Department of Transportation now requiring all commercial trucks to have electronic logging devices, hours-of-service regulations can be more strictly enforced. Truckers cannot falsify the number of hours they drove with an ELD like they can with paper logs.
It turns out that hours-of-service violations were, together with brake safety non-compliance, the top issue in 2017’s International Roadcheck. More than 63,000 trucks were inspected last year, and 15,000 drivers were issued out-of-service orders. 12,000 were for vehicle-related violations, and the remaining 3,000 were for driver-related negligence. During this event, an average of 15 vehicles were inspected every minute in North America.
The consequence of ignoring the hours-of-service guideline and overworking is truck driver fatigue. Sometimes, the trucking companies encourage this so that employees can meet their deadline. When these fatigued truckers caused an accident, then, the victims may have the grounds for an injury claim with the trucking company.
The lawyers representing the company will be aggressive in denying a settlement, so victims will also want legal representation. Accident attorneys can show, with the help of investigators, that the crash was the result of the defendant’s negligence or recklessness.
Tags: Truck Accidents
