Truck and bus safety enforcement agencies throughout the United States and Canada will conduct 16 hours of brake safety roadside inspections Sept. 5 as part of Operation Air Brake.

This North American brake safety campaign is sponsored by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators.
These special safety inspections, which began in 1998, are conducted several days each year to reduce the number of brake-related violations.
While brake-related defects continue to be the most frequent commercial vehicle equipment violation, the results show improvements in safety compliance. For example, 10,344 vehicles were inspected in the May 2000 Operation Air Brake, with 18.5 percent placed out of service for brake violations. In May 2001, 12,938 vehicles were inspected, with 16 percent placed out of service for brake violations.
Although there's no overwhelming evidence of correlation between brake defects and their contribution to crashes, there is sufficient data to show that reducing brake defect occurrences will improve vehicles' stopping capability. This, in turn, can have a positive effect on the crash rate for commercial vehicles, according to CVSA.