August 26, 2024 • 21 mins
Episode 333: What if a simple brake inspection could save lives on the road? In this episode we talk about the life-or-death importance of Brake Safety Week, running from August 25th to August 31st, 2024. This safety week is organized by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA).
We emphasize the crucial role of brake upkeep, especially given that brake violations are the top reason for taking commercial vehicles off the road during safety inspections. Brake Safety Week aims to remind everyone that vigilance is necessary all year round, not just for one week.
Show Notes: Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com for complete show notes of this episode and to subscribe to all our content.
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Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation: Find out how many “fault codes” your heavy-duty parts business has. Meet with us today. Visit HeavyDutyConsulting.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jamie Irvine (00:00):
You're listening to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report.
I'm your host, jamie Irvin, andthis is the place where we have
conversations that empowerheavy-duty people.
Welcome to the Heavy-Duty PartsReport.
I'm your host, jamie Irvin.
In this episode, we're going totalk about Break Safety Week.
Break Safety Week 2024 occurredbetween August 25th and August
(00:24):
31st 2024.
So if you're listening when theepisode first dropped, you're
right in the middle of it.
Now, in this episode, we'regoing to talk about the history
of Brake Safety Week and whereit came from.
We're going to talk about theimpact it's had on the trucking
industry and we're going to talkabout why this is such an
important initiative.
Because, let's face it, whenbrakes on commercial trucks and
(00:44):
trailers go, bad things happen.
Let's get into it.
Before I get into the historyof Brake Safety Week, I just
wanted to share with you apersonal story that really
emphasizes why this is such animportant subject.
So when I was new in theheavy-duty parts industry, we
started getting into reliningcommercial brakes and I remember
(01:06):
one of my mentors telling me hesaid in the inner city limits
of the greater Vancouver area,trucks and trailers that operate
within those limits do notusually have to go through the
scales and they don't have to gothrough certain inspection
points that are set up as trucksand trailers are coming in and
(01:27):
out of the greater Vancouverarea.
And so he said to me.
He said I'm going to tell yousomething.
I tell my wife never, ever,pull out in front of a dump
truck in this city.
Now why was he saying that?
Well, he was saying thatbecause a lot of the dump trucks
never left the city limits andtherefore, unless they got
pulled over by a roadsideinspection, they never went
(01:47):
through any kind of enforcementto make sure that their brakes
were right up to expected levelsand therefore it made them
dangerous, because if you pulledout in front of them and they
tried to stop quickly and theycouldn't, you were the one that
was going to lose thatinteraction.
Now, remember this was over 25years ago.
(02:14):
A lot has been done to try toensure that there is a standard
that is universally applied tothe trucking industry.
And so I tell you that storybecause when we get into the
history of Brake Safety Week, wecan't talk about Brake Safety
Week without talking about theCommercial Vehicle Safety
Alliance or CVSA.
Those two are closely connected.
Now let's go and talk a littlebit about this origin and
(02:36):
formation of the CVSA.
It started in 1980 as aninformal gathering of state
agencies and a couple Canadianprovinces and these were all on
the west side of the continentand they were really focused on
creating some standards and someprocedures and methods to
(02:59):
improve the enforcement andefficiency of certain
regulations that were in placeto try to regulate commercial
vehicles, just basically, at theend of the day, to try to make
them more safe on our publicroads.
Now, eventually, there was thedevelopment of a memorandum of
understanding or an MOU, thatwas really focused on
(03:22):
establishing uniformity inhighway enforcement on
commercial vehicles so that wedidn't have a situation where a
commercial truck in one area washeld to a different standard
than a commercial truck inanother area.
And really, when you think ofthis memorandum of understanding
, this was the beginning ofwhere a nationwide standard was
(03:45):
to be established.
Now, eventually, this alliancethat was formed in a couple of
the western provinces in Canadaand a few of the states on the
west coast, that alliance beganto expand and really it went
from a regional focus tointernational scope.
And that expansion started in1982, where more states and
(04:10):
Canadian provinces becameassociate members of this
alliance.
Now, eventually, there wasintegration between the
Commercial Vehicle SafetyAlliance standards with the US
Surface TransportationAssistance Act of 1982.
And this led to the formationof a unified North American
(04:30):
standard.
Eventually, this came about byabout 1984.
And so, really, once thisuniform standard was applied
nationwide in both the UnitedStates and Canada, it brought
this consistency in standardsand the enforcement of certain
(04:51):
regulations which, theoretically, was going to lead to safer
trucks on the road.
Now, eventually, cvsa'sheadquarters moved to Washington
DC.
Obviously, there's a closeconnection between the alliance
and federal regulators, and theCVSA has now truly become a
North American council becauseMexico joined in 1991.
(05:17):
And so this truly became aNorth American alliance.
So that's the history of theCommercial Vehicle Safety
Alliance.
And where does Brake Safety Weekcome into all of this?
Well, brake Safety Week wasjust one of the initiatives that
this alliance put forth to tryto educate people, to try to
(05:37):
bring awareness to some of themost important systems on a
commercial truck or trailer thathave led historically to the
most amount of collisions.
Let's talk about that for amoment.
So, according to CVSA, brakeviolations comprise the largest
percentage of the out-of-serviceviolations that are cited
(06:00):
during roadside inspections.
Last year's international roadcheck, brake violations were the
top of the vehicle violationlist, comprising of 25.2% for
all of the vehicleout-of-service violations during
those three days.
So one of the things that'sreally important to remember
(06:21):
about just collisions in generalthat lead to loss of life, that
lead to injury, that lead todamage to vehicles.
Brakes with commercial vehiclesare really at the top of the
list, and so if you look at whatBrake Safety Week was all about
, really it was brought forwardby CVSA because they saw the
(06:43):
need to be more awarenessbrought to things like driver
inspection, regulatorycompliance and enforcement
initiatives, and so this brakesafety awareness and outreach
became an opportunity to reallytry to drive that awareness and
to remind people who operatecommercial equipment of the
(07:04):
importance.
Now this is just a week-longfocus, but it was really
designed to be able to spur thaton an ongoing basis throughout
the entire year.
So Break Safety Week is thisintense week of focus on it, but
really the hope is that peopleare thinking about their breaks
all year long.
Now let's talk a little bitabout the results of the last
(07:29):
couple brake safety weeks over22 and 23, and then we'll talk
about what the focus is going tobe in 24.
So, according to the CVSA,brake safety week in 2022
resulted in 13.3% of theout-of-service violations
leading to vehicles being takenoff the road.
This decreased to 12.6 percentin 2023.
(07:54):
Now the question is, of courseis this trend going to continue
in 2024?
And it is possible that we willsee a decline, but there might
be a compelling reason why wewill see an increase.
Now we're going to talk aboutwhat the focus of 2024 is and
why we might see an increase in2024 of out-of-service
(08:15):
violations during break safetyweek.
When we come back from ourbreak, we'll be right back.
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(08:36):
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Okay, we're back from the break.
Before the break, we weretalking about the history of the
Commercial Vehicle SafetyAlliance.
We were talking about what thepoint of Brake Safety Week was
and we talked about thepercentage of out-of-service
(10:00):
violations that were issued in22 and 23.
Now we're going to talk about24.
Now in 2024, now we're going totalk about 24.
Now in 2024, the focus for 2024is going to be all about the
lining and the friction materialand there's going to be a heavy
focus on that specifically.
So inspectors are going to belooking for excessive wear in
(10:23):
the brake linings and pads.
They're going to look forcracks in that.
They are going to be lookingfor other things like, for
example, rubbing airlines.
Now TransService Logistics.
Jim Ward, who is a service andsafety manager at Transverse
Logistics, had this to say.
He said those rubbing airlinesget written up a lot.
(10:43):
If you have two brake lines,which some of them are rubber
and others are made of a polymaterial, what happens is those
two hoses have a lot of pressuregoing through them and they're
sitting right next to each other.
So over time, with thevibration of the truck, they
tend to rub against each otherand they can start leaving
little marks on each other, andsometimes they'll wear down far
(11:05):
enough that it actually puts achafe in the hose.
That's something that is oftenoverlooked.
According to Ward, it may lookfine, but if those two hoses are
touching, you're going to getwritten up for it because you
should make sure that they arekept separated.
So inspectors are going to belooking at a lot of different
aspects of your foundation breaksystem to ensure that you're in
(11:25):
compliance.
Now I wanted to talk about sevenways that you can make sure
that you're ready for thoseinspections, which really will
cover off the things that thoseinspectors are going to be
looking for this year.
So, number one make sure youinspect your brake lining and
look for signs of decay,including grooves in the drum
from contact with a rivet.
(11:47):
That means that the frictionmaterial has been worn right
down.
Of course, if you're runningair disc brake, then it's a pad
and a rotor setup.
You want to evaluate the shoeto drum clearance to confirm
that there's adequate lining onthe shoe.
Number three we want to searchfor leaks at the hub that may be
contaminating the pad surface.
You also, number four, want toconfirm that there is no lining
(12:11):
that is missing.
This actually still happenstoday, which is crazy to me.
Number five, you want to checkfor cracks in the lining.
Number six, you want to lookfor exposed rivets on the shoe.
And number seven, you want toensure that the rotors are in
good condition or the drums arein good condition, they're not
oval, they're not showingexcessive signs of wear.
(12:32):
These are the kinds of thingsthat you should be looking at to
prepare yourself for 2024,because these are the things
that inspectors are going tolook at.
There is an official inspectionchecklist that we have made
available in the show notes, andso if you go to the show notes
on heavydutypartsreportcom fortoday's episode, you will be
able to download that checklist.
(12:54):
It's a much more comprehensivelist and will make sure that you
are able to get through aninspection with no problem.
So let's talk a little bit aboutwhy it's very possible that
this year in 2024, we may seemore out-of-service violations.
Well, the main reason that wemight see more out-of-service
(13:14):
violations in 2024 is becausethe CVSA announced that
performance-based brake testers,or PBBTs, will be used in some
jurisdictions during BrakeSafety Week.
Now, pbbts are machines thattest brake performance.
They measure the slow speed,brake force and weight at each
(13:36):
wheel of the vehicle.
They add up the total vehiclebrake force and then they divide
it by the total vehicle weightto determine overall vehicle
braking efficiency.
It's kind of difficult tospeculate right now the impact
that this is going to have, butthe use of this technology could
affect the percentage ofout-of-service violations
(13:56):
because the measurementsthemselves will be more accurate
on the brake performance.
So, according to the CVSA, ofthe 4,898 inspections conducted
on brake safety day, which wasunannounced a couple months ago,
88.4% of the vehicles had nobrake-related out-of-service
(14:17):
violations.
However, the inspection didshow that 570, or 11.6% of those
vehicles did, and they hadcritical violations that took
them out of service.
Now, if that number holds forbrake safety week throughout the
entire week.
We will see a continuedimprovement of this metric of
(14:39):
how many vehicles are beingtaken out of service during
these inspections, and thatwould be a great thing.
That tells us that brake safetyweek is working.
But if we see a rise in 2024,it may be due to these PBBTs and
therefore we're going to haveto recalibrate the way that we
calculate this data andnormalize it for the pre-PBBT
(15:02):
era and the post-PBBT era.
At the end of the day, thisinitiative of Brake Safety Week
is good for the industryVehicles that have these
critical violations areimmediately taken off the road
and everybody else.
There's a lot of awareness,there's a lot of focus on it,
and that is good for theindustry.
(15:23):
It's good for those who sharepublic roads with the commercial
trucking industry those whoshare public roads with the
commercial trucking industry.
So I hope that this has beeninformative for you and I hope
that you are able to take awaysomething from this.
If you're in the part side ofthe business, talk to your
customers.
Make sure that they have theparts they need to fix their
brakes.
If you're on the service side,do these inspections ahead of
(15:44):
time.
Prepare your customers not justduring Brake safety week, but
all year long.
Let's do our individual partsto reduce the kinds of
collisions that happen whenthere is a break, failure, and
with that it's time for that'snot heavy duty.
It's truly a scary thing when acommercial vehicle a truck and
(16:07):
trailer loaded loses its brakesand you know that puts the
driver at risk.
It puts the other people on theroad at risk.
That's not the heavy duty way.
Obviously, accidents do happen.
Obviously, accidents do happen.
But if a brake failure iscaused by a lack of maintenance
(16:27):
or someone just not doing therepair the correct way, that's
not heavy duty.
I want to show you a couple ofclips from a video that we found
a truly scary incident.
Now, if you're listening on theaudio version, I encourage you
to go to the links in our shownotes and click the link and
watch the video.
But I'll explain it to you.
You have a tractor trailergoing down a steep grade.
(16:48):
They have clearly lost theirbrakes.
Law enforcement is behind thetractor trailer trying to
protect other people and keeppeople behind this truck or
trailer.
The brakes are smoking.
The truck is clearly going downthis grade nearly out of
control.
Eventually the driver, as aprofessional should do, takes
(17:12):
the emergency lane that isspecifically there, with the
right kind of gravel to slow thetruck down.
But eventually the truck doescome to a stop and actually
rolls over.
The freight inside of the53-foot trailer explodes out
(17:33):
onto the highway through the topand front of the trailer.
The tractor is flipped over onits side.
This driver is very lucky tocome away alive from this
incident.
You could imagine if, throughthe investigation, it is
discovered that this wholesituation, where so many people
(17:53):
were at risk, could have beenavoided, if only proper
maintenance and repairs weredone.
Now, if this is a true blueaccident, these things do happen
.
That's why those emergencyescape lanes are on the sides of
highways, especially down steepgrades, because these things do
happen.
But you can imagine if this wassomething that was avoidable
(18:16):
and it was just strictly becausethe wrong parts were used or
the wrong methods of maintainingand repairing the foundation
brake system were deployed.
That's not heavy duty.
The heavy duty way is to investin the right parts, high
quality, high performance parts,installed correctly, maintained
(18:36):
correctly, so that these things, if they are avoidable, are
truly avoided.
That's how you do it.
The heavy duty way.
If they are avoidable, aretruly avoided.
That's how you do it the heavyduty way.
Well, this brings our episodewhere we do an in-depth
discussion about brake safetyweek to a conclusion.
I want to thank you forlistening right to the end.
I hope you enjoyed that video.
As I said, if you want to watchit if you're listening to the
audio version rather than youwant to watch the video head
(18:58):
over to our YouTube channel orclick the show notes and you can
watch the link and the videodirectly.
Now we've got a coupleannouncements.
I just wanted to let you knowthat we're going to take a
couple of weeks of holidays thissummer at the heavy duty parts
report, but we're not going toleave you without some great
content.
So the next two episodes aregoing to be an airing of our two
(19:22):
most popular episodes.
These are episodes that are inthe top five of our all-time
most popular episodes, but thesetwo are the most popular
episodes of the last year.
So next week we're going totalk about low-voltage batteries
with Clarios and we're going tore-air that interview.
If you haven't heard it, or ifit's been a while since you
(19:43):
listened to it, you shouldreally listen to it.
There was some great technicalinformation in there about
electrical systems on moderncommercial trucks.
The following week we're goingto re-air an interview that we
had with a general manager atBetts Truck Parts where we
talked about the importance ofcorrectly identifying parts and
where we really shared somepractical tips and tools on how
(20:07):
to do that.
So if you're in the parts game,this is an episode.
If you missed it, youdefinitely want to listen to it
again.
After that we're going to beback and that's going to take us
into the fall season.
We've got more trade showscoming.
We've got great interviewscoming with guests that I think
you're going to really enjoy.
So we're going to take a coupleof weeks break, but we will be
talking to you soon.
(20:27):
Thank you so much for yourongoing support of the Heavy
Duty Parts Report and, if youhaven't already, I'd like to
invite you to take the time tosend us a message.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you're listening to thisepisode on the podcast player of
your choice, go to the shownotes.
There's a button to send us atext.
If you want to just communicatewith us by email or through
(20:49):
comments, make sure you followus on one of our social channels
or go to the contact form onour website over at
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Speaking of that, while you'reon the website, sign up to our
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(21:09):
If you're on the podcast playerof your choice, hit that follow
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And if you watch on YouTube,make sure you hit the subscribe
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out.
Thanks to you again for all ofthe ongoing support and, as
always, I want to encourage youto be heavy duty.
You're listening to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report.
I'm your host, jamie Irvin, andthis is the place where we have
conversations that empowerheavy-duty people.
Welcome to the Heavy-Duty PartsReport.
I'm your host, jamie Irvin.
In this episode, we're going totalk about Break Safety Week.
Break Safety Week 2024 occurredbetween August 25th and August
(00:24):
31st 2024.
So if you're listening when theepisode first dropped, you're
right in the middle of it.
Now, in this episode, we'regoing to talk about the history
of Brake Safety Week and whereit came from.
We're going to talk about theimpact it's had on the trucking
industry and we're going to talkabout why this is such an
important initiative.
Because, let's face it, whenbrakes on commercial trucks and
(00:44):
trailers go, bad things happen.
Let's get into it.
Before I get into the historyof Brake Safety Week, I just
wanted to share with you apersonal story that really
emphasizes why this is such animportant subject.
So when I was new in theheavy-duty parts industry, we
started getting into reliningcommercial brakes and I remember
(01:06):
one of my mentors telling me hesaid in the inner city limits
of the greater Vancouver area,trucks and trailers that operate
within those limits do notusually have to go through the
scales and they don't have to gothrough certain inspection
points that are set up as trucksand trailers are coming in and
(01:27):
out of the greater Vancouverarea.
And so he said to me.
He said I'm going to tell yousomething.
I tell my wife never, ever,pull out in front of a dump
truck in this city.
Now why was he saying that?
Well, he was saying thatbecause a lot of the dump trucks
never left the city limits andtherefore, unless they got
pulled over by a roadsideinspection, they never went
(01:47):
through any kind of enforcementto make sure that their brakes
were right up to expected levelsand therefore it made them
dangerous, because if you pulledout in front of them and they
tried to stop quickly and theycouldn't, you were the one that
was going to lose thatinteraction.
Now, remember this was over 25years ago.
(02:14):
A lot has been done to try toensure that there is a standard
that is universally applied tothe trucking industry.
And so I tell you that storybecause when we get into the
history of Brake Safety Week, wecan't talk about Brake Safety
Week without talking about theCommercial Vehicle Safety
Alliance or CVSA.
Those two are closely connected.
Now let's go and talk a littlebit about this origin and
(02:36):
formation of the CVSA.
It started in 1980 as aninformal gathering of state
agencies and a couple Canadianprovinces and these were all on
the west side of the continentand they were really focused on
creating some standards and someprocedures and methods to
(02:59):
improve the enforcement andefficiency of certain
regulations that were in placeto try to regulate commercial
vehicles, just basically, at theend of the day, to try to make
them more safe on our publicroads.
Now, eventually, there was thedevelopment of a memorandum of
understanding or an MOU, thatwas really focused on
(03:22):
establishing uniformity inhighway enforcement on
commercial vehicles so that wedidn't have a situation where a
commercial truck in one area washeld to a different standard
than a commercial truck inanother area.
And really, when you think ofthis memorandum of understanding
, this was the beginning ofwhere a nationwide standard was
(03:45):
to be established.
Now, eventually, this alliancethat was formed in a couple of
the western provinces in Canadaand a few of the states on the
west coast, that alliance beganto expand and really it went
from a regional focus tointernational scope.
And that expansion started in1982, where more states and
(04:10):
Canadian provinces becameassociate members of this
alliance.
Now, eventually, there wasintegration between the
Commercial Vehicle SafetyAlliance standards with the US
Surface TransportationAssistance Act of 1982.
And this led to the formationof a unified North American
(04:30):
standard.
Eventually, this came about byabout 1984.
And so, really, once thisuniform standard was applied
nationwide in both the UnitedStates and Canada, it brought
this consistency in standardsand the enforcement of certain
(04:51):
regulations which, theoretically, was going to lead to safer
trucks on the road.
Now, eventually, cvsa'sheadquarters moved to Washington
DC.
Obviously, there's a closeconnection between the alliance
and federal regulators, and theCVSA has now truly become a
North American council becauseMexico joined in 1991.
(05:17):
And so this truly became aNorth American alliance.
So that's the history of theCommercial Vehicle Safety
Alliance.
And where does Brake Safety Weekcome into all of this?
Well, brake Safety Week wasjust one of the initiatives that
this alliance put forth to tryto educate people, to try to
(05:37):
bring awareness to some of themost important systems on a
commercial truck or trailer thathave led historically to the
most amount of collisions.
Let's talk about that for amoment.
So, according to CVSA, brakeviolations comprise the largest
percentage of the out-of-serviceviolations that are cited
(06:00):
during roadside inspections.
Last year's international roadcheck, brake violations were the
top of the vehicle violationlist, comprising of 25.2% for
all of the vehicleout-of-service violations during
those three days.
So one of the things that'sreally important to remember
(06:21):
about just collisions in generalthat lead to loss of life, that
lead to injury, that lead todamage to vehicles.
Brakes with commercial vehiclesare really at the top of the
list, and so if you look at whatBrake Safety Week was all about
, really it was brought forwardby CVSA because they saw the
(06:43):
need to be more awarenessbrought to things like driver
inspection, regulatorycompliance and enforcement
initiatives, and so this brakesafety awareness and outreach
became an opportunity to reallytry to drive that awareness and
to remind people who operatecommercial equipment of the
(07:04):
importance.
Now this is just a week-longfocus, but it was really
designed to be able to spur thaton an ongoing basis throughout
the entire year.
So Break Safety Week is thisintense week of focus on it, but
really the hope is that peopleare thinking about their breaks
all year long.
Now let's talk a little bitabout the results of the last
(07:29):
couple brake safety weeks over22 and 23, and then we'll talk
about what the focus is going tobe in 24.
So, according to the CVSA,brake safety week in 2022
resulted in 13.3% of theout-of-service violations
leading to vehicles being takenoff the road.
This decreased to 12.6 percentin 2023.
(07:54):
Now the question is, of courseis this trend going to continue
in 2024?
And it is possible that we willsee a decline, but there might
be a compelling reason why wewill see an increase.
Now we're going to talk aboutwhat the focus of 2024 is and
why we might see an increase in2024 of out-of-service
(08:15):
violations during break safetyweek.
When we come back from ourbreak, we'll be right back.
Are you deferring maintenancebecause of filter cost or
availability or, worse yet, areyou trading down to no-name
filters to try to save a fewbucks?
Either way, you're rolling thedice.
The good news there's a newpremium filter option for fleets
Hanks Filtration.
(08:36):
If you're responsible for afleet, you won't believe how
much using Hanks filters willsave you.
But you've got to go toheavydutypartsreportcom slash
Hanks to find out more.
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Okay, we're back from the break.
Before the break, we weretalking about the history of the
Commercial Vehicle SafetyAlliance.
We were talking about what thepoint of Brake Safety Week was
and we talked about thepercentage of out-of-service
(10:00):
violations that were issued in22 and 23.
Now we're going to talk about24.
Now in 2024, now we're going totalk about 24.
Now in 2024, the focus for 2024is going to be all about the
lining and the friction materialand there's going to be a heavy
focus on that specifically.
So inspectors are going to belooking for excessive wear in
(10:23):
the brake linings and pads.
They're going to look forcracks in that.
They are going to be lookingfor other things like, for
example, rubbing airlines.
Now TransService Logistics.
Jim Ward, who is a service andsafety manager at Transverse
Logistics, had this to say.
He said those rubbing airlinesget written up a lot.
(10:43):
If you have two brake lines,which some of them are rubber
and others are made of a polymaterial, what happens is those
two hoses have a lot of pressuregoing through them and they're
sitting right next to each other.
So over time, with thevibration of the truck, they
tend to rub against each otherand they can start leaving
little marks on each other, andsometimes they'll wear down far
(11:05):
enough that it actually puts achafe in the hose.
That's something that is oftenoverlooked.
According to Ward, it may lookfine, but if those two hoses are
touching, you're going to getwritten up for it because you
should make sure that they arekept separated.
So inspectors are going to belooking at a lot of different
aspects of your foundation breaksystem to ensure that you're in
(11:25):
compliance.
Now I wanted to talk about sevenways that you can make sure
that you're ready for thoseinspections, which really will
cover off the things that thoseinspectors are going to be
looking for this year.
So, number one make sure youinspect your brake lining and
look for signs of decay,including grooves in the drum
from contact with a rivet.
(11:47):
That means that the frictionmaterial has been worn right
down.
Of course, if you're runningair disc brake, then it's a pad
and a rotor setup.
You want to evaluate the shoeto drum clearance to confirm
that there's adequate lining onthe shoe.
Number three we want to searchfor leaks at the hub that may be
contaminating the pad surface.
You also, number four, want toconfirm that there is no lining
(12:11):
that is missing.
This actually still happenstoday, which is crazy to me.
Number five, you want to checkfor cracks in the lining.
Number six, you want to lookfor exposed rivets on the shoe.
And number seven, you want toensure that the rotors are in
good condition or the drums arein good condition, they're not
oval, they're not showingexcessive signs of wear.
(12:32):
These are the kinds of thingsthat you should be looking at to
prepare yourself for 2024,because these are the things
that inspectors are going tolook at.
There is an official inspectionchecklist that we have made
available in the show notes, andso if you go to the show notes
on heavydutypartsreportcom fortoday's episode, you will be
able to download that checklist.
(12:54):
It's a much more comprehensivelist and will make sure that you
are able to get through aninspection with no problem.
So let's talk a little bit aboutwhy it's very possible that
this year in 2024, we may seemore out-of-service violations.
Well, the main reason that wemight see more out-of-service
(13:14):
violations in 2024 is becausethe CVSA announced that
performance-based brake testers,or PBBTs, will be used in some
jurisdictions during BrakeSafety Week.
Now, pbbts are machines thattest brake performance.
They measure the slow speed,brake force and weight at each
(13:36):
wheel of the vehicle.
They add up the total vehiclebrake force and then they divide
it by the total vehicle weightto determine overall vehicle
braking efficiency.
It's kind of difficult tospeculate right now the impact
that this is going to have, butthe use of this technology could
affect the percentage ofout-of-service violations
(13:56):
because the measurementsthemselves will be more accurate
on the brake performance.
So, according to the CVSA, ofthe 4,898 inspections conducted
on brake safety day, which wasunannounced a couple months ago,
88.4% of the vehicles had nobrake-related out-of-service
(14:17):
violations.
However, the inspection didshow that 570, or 11.6% of those
vehicles did, and they hadcritical violations that took
them out of service.
Now, if that number holds forbrake safety week throughout the
entire week.
We will see a continuedimprovement of this metric of
(14:39):
how many vehicles are beingtaken out of service during
these inspections, and thatwould be a great thing.
That tells us that brake safetyweek is working.
But if we see a rise in 2024,it may be due to these PBBTs and
therefore we're going to haveto recalibrate the way that we
calculate this data andnormalize it for the pre-PBBT
(15:02):
era and the post-PBBT era.
At the end of the day, thisinitiative of Brake Safety Week
is good for the industryVehicles that have these
critical violations areimmediately taken off the road
and everybody else.
There's a lot of awareness,there's a lot of focus on it,
and that is good for theindustry.
(15:23):
It's good for those who sharepublic roads with the commercial
trucking industry those whoshare public roads with the
commercial trucking industry.
So I hope that this has beeninformative for you and I hope
that you are able to take awaysomething from this.
If you're in the part side ofthe business, talk to your
customers.
Make sure that they have theparts they need to fix their
brakes.
If you're on the service side,do these inspections ahead of
(15:44):
time.
Prepare your customers not justduring Brake safety week, but
all year long.
Let's do our individual partsto reduce the kinds of
collisions that happen whenthere is a break, failure, and
with that it's time for that'snot heavy duty.
It's truly a scary thing when acommercial vehicle a truck and
(16:07):
trailer loaded loses its brakesand you know that puts the
driver at risk.
It puts the other people on theroad at risk.
That's not the heavy duty way.
Obviously, accidents do happen.
Obviously, accidents do happen.
But if a brake failure iscaused by a lack of maintenance
(16:27):
or someone just not doing therepair the correct way, that's
not heavy duty.
I want to show you a couple ofclips from a video that we found
a truly scary incident.
Now, if you're listening on theaudio version, I encourage you
to go to the links in our shownotes and click the link and
watch the video.
But I'll explain it to you.
You have a tractor trailergoing down a steep grade.
(16:48):
They have clearly lost theirbrakes.
Law enforcement is behind thetractor trailer trying to
protect other people and keeppeople behind this truck or
trailer.
The brakes are smoking.
The truck is clearly going downthis grade nearly out of
control.
Eventually the driver, as aprofessional should do, takes
(17:12):
the emergency lane that isspecifically there, with the
right kind of gravel to slow thetruck down.
But eventually the truck doescome to a stop and actually
rolls over.
The freight inside of the53-foot trailer explodes out
(17:33):
onto the highway through the topand front of the trailer.
The tractor is flipped over onits side.
This driver is very lucky tocome away alive from this
incident.
You could imagine if, throughthe investigation, it is
discovered that this wholesituation, where so many people
(17:53):
were at risk, could have beenavoided, if only proper
maintenance and repairs weredone.
Now, if this is a true blueaccident, these things do happen
.
That's why those emergencyescape lanes are on the sides of
highways, especially down steepgrades, because these things do
happen.
But you can imagine if this wassomething that was avoidable
(18:16):
and it was just strictly becausethe wrong parts were used or
the wrong methods of maintainingand repairing the foundation
brake system were deployed.
That's not heavy duty.
The heavy duty way is to investin the right parts, high
quality, high performance parts,installed correctly, maintained
(18:36):
correctly, so that these things, if they are avoidable, are
truly avoided.
That's how you do it.
The heavy duty way.
If they are avoidable, aretruly avoided.
That's how you do it the heavyduty way.
Well, this brings our episodewhere we do an in-depth
discussion about brake safetyweek to a conclusion.
I want to thank you forlistening right to the end.
I hope you enjoyed that video.
As I said, if you want to watchit if you're listening to the
audio version rather than youwant to watch the video head
(18:58):
over to our YouTube channel orclick the show notes and you can
watch the link and the videodirectly.
Now we've got a coupleannouncements.
I just wanted to let you knowthat we're going to take a
couple of weeks of holidays thissummer at the heavy duty parts
report, but we're not going toleave you without some great
content.
So the next two episodes aregoing to be an airing of our two
(19:22):
most popular episodes.
These are episodes that are inthe top five of our all-time
most popular episodes, but thesetwo are the most popular
episodes of the last year.
So next week we're going totalk about low-voltage batteries
with Clarios and we're going tore-air that interview.
If you haven't heard it, or ifit's been a while since you
(19:43):
listened to it, you shouldreally listen to it.
There was some great technicalinformation in there about
electrical systems on moderncommercial trucks.
The following week we're goingto re-air an interview that we
had with a general manager atBetts Truck Parts where we
talked about the importance ofcorrectly identifying parts and
where we really shared somepractical tips and tools on how
(20:07):
to do that.
So if you're in the parts game,this is an episode.
If you missed it, youdefinitely want to listen to it
again.
After that we're going to beback and that's going to take us
into the fall season.
We've got more trade showscoming.
We've got great interviewscoming with guests that I think
you're going to really enjoy.
So we're going to take a coupleof weeks break, but we will be
talking to you soon.
(20:27):
Thank you so much for yourongoing support of the Heavy
Duty Parts Report and, if youhaven't already, I'd like to
invite you to take the time tosend us a message.
We'd love to hear from you.
If you're listening to thisepisode on the podcast player of
your choice, go to the shownotes.
There's a button to send us atext.
If you want to just communicatewith us by email or through
(20:49):
comments, make sure you followus on one of our social channels
or go to the contact form onour website over at
heavydutypartsreportcom.
Speaking of that, while you'reon the website, sign up to our
weekly email, follow the show.
You get one email a week wherewe just give you the most up to
date content so you never missout.
(21:09):
If you're on the podcast playerof your choice, hit that follow
button.
If it gives you the option,give us a five star rating and
review.
I've heard that helps us withreach.
And if you watch on YouTube,make sure you hit the subscribe
button and hit that bellnotification so you never miss
out.
Thanks to you again for all ofthe ongoing support and, as
always, I want to encourage youto be heavy duty.
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