The Most Common DOT Roadside Inspection Failures

Most out-of-service orders are not written for exotic mechanical failures. They are written for a burned-out marker lamp, a brake that is a half inch past its stroke limit, and a strap that should have been replaced two months ago.

That is the frustrating part and also the good news. Nearly everything that puts a truck out of service at a scale house is something a driver could have found in fifteen minutes with a flashlight.

Lights. It is always lights.

Inoperative required lamps are consistently the single most-cited vehicle violation in the country. Not brakes. Not tires. Lights. A dead clearance lamp, a dead tail lamp, a marker that flickers when you hit a bump.

It is also the easiest one to eliminate completely. Walk the truck and the trailer with the lights on before every trip, get someone to watch the brake lamps, and carry spare bulbs. Chase the intermittents to their real cause, which is almost always a corroded ground at the lamp housing or a chafed wire where the harness crosses the frame.

Brakes and the 20 percent rule

Brake system and brake adjustment violations together make up the largest share of vehicle out-of-service orders in the industry, year after year.

The rule that catches people is the 20 percent rule. If 20 percent or more of the service brakes on the vehicle are defective, the whole vehicle goes out of service. On a five-axle combination with ten brakes, two bad brakes ends your day.

The most common defect is a brake out of adjustment, meaning pushrod stroke past the readjustment limit. On the common long-stroke type 30 chamber that limit is 2 inches. On a standard-stroke type 30 it is 1.75. You can check it yourself: chock the wheels, build air, mark the pushrod at rest, make a full application, and measure the travel.

Also written up constantly: audible air leaks, chafed or cracked air hoses, worn-out linings, a drum cracked through, and mismatched chamber sizes across an axle.

If your truck has automatic slack adjusters and one is out of adjustment, do not just crank it back into spec and drive off. An automatic slack that has drifted out is telling you something else is failing, usually the s-cam bushings or the slack itself. Manually adjusting an automatic slack is a violation on its own, and it hides the real problem until the brake quits on a grade.

Tires and wheels

• Tread depth: 4/32 minimum on the steer axle, 2/32 on every other tire. A gauge costs a few dollars.
• Any tire with fabric or cord showing, a sidewall cut into the cord, or a tread or belt separation is out of service on the spot.
• A flat tire, or a tire with an audible air leak, is out of service.
• No regrooved tires on the steer axle of a heavy truck.
• Loose or missing lug nuts, elongated lug holes, a cracked wheel, or a rim that has been welded or repaired. Welded rims are a hard no.
• Duals touching each other, or a tire rubbing anything on the truck.

At your pre-trip, look for the rust streak running down from a lug nut. That means the nut has been moving.

Cargo securement

This one hammers flatbeds, and it is entirely a math-and-inspection problem you can solve in the yard.

• The combined working load limit of your tiedowns has to be at least half the weight of the cargo they are holding.
• Minimum count: an article longer than 10 feet needs at least two tiedowns for the first 10 feet, plus one more for every additional 10 feet or part of 10 feet.
• Cut, frayed, knotted or heavily abraded straps and chains are defective, and so are damaged winches and bent binders.
• If the inspector can move the load by hand, it is not secured.

Steering, suspension and the stuff underneath

This is what separates a full Level I from a walkaround, because the inspector goes under the truck with a light.

• Excessive steering wheel lash, a worn drag link or pitman arm, a leaking steering gear.
• A broken leaf in a spring assembly, or any spring part shifted where it could contact a tire or the frame.
• A torn or leaking air bag, loose U-bolts, a broken torque rod.
• A cracked frame rail or a cracked weld at a crossmember.
• Air hoses chafing on a driveshaft or frame rail. Cheap to fix in the yard, expensive at the scale.

And do not forget the driver half of the ticket: hours of service and ELD issues, an expired medical card, a missing endorsement, no seat belt. Same for emergency equipment, which people forget until they are asked for it. A charged and properly mounted fire extinguisher, three bidirectional warning triangles, and spare fuses if your truck uses them.

The pre-trip that prevents most of it

1. 1Lights on, walk the whole rig front to back, both sides. Get someone on the brake pedal.
2. 2Gauge every tire cold, including the inside duals. Look for cord, cuts, separations and rust streaks at the lugs.
3. 3Build air, run a leak-down test, and check pushrod stroke on at least a couple of brakes.
4. 4Look at every air hose where it crosses metal.
5. 5Check straps, chains, binders and the load itself.
6. 6Extinguisher charged and mounted, triangles in the truck, paperwork current.

Fifteen minutes. It is the cheapest insurance in trucking, and a clean Level I gets you a CVSA decal that is good for about three months.

If your pre-trip turns up something you cannot fix, or you get put out of service at a scale on the I-10 corridor, the fix has to come to you. Duckett Roadside Repair does mobile truck and trailer repair on air systems, lights, electrical, tires and brakes across Milton, Pace, Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, Navarre and Crestview. Dispatch answers at (850) 495-0366, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Read James the violation off the report and he can bring what it takes to clear it.