Due to the enormous heft of commercial trucks, having a reliable braking system is of the utmost importance. When brakes fail truckers are unable to sufficiently stop their vehicles, which can lead to serious injury as well as loss of life. That’s why proper brake maintenance is so important, both for Texas truckers as well as other motorists.
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) highlights the importance of brake maintenance with their Brake Safety Week campaign. One needs only to look at statistics to understand why this effort is to vital. It’s estimated that 32.7 percent of trucks involved in crashes had experienced brake issues in the past. That’s why the CVSA advocates regular inspections of commercial vehicle braking systems, which can be used to pull truck with braking violations out of rotation.
American Trucker also urges truckers and the companies they work for to be aware of the issue. In order to properly prepare for Level I brake inspections, which are the most exhaustive, truckers should have their braking systems looked at for certain issues known to cause serious brake problems. This includes things like wear and tear on linings, loose or missing parts, leaking air or hydraulic fluid, pads, and a number of other crucial components.
They also list a few things that can happen when brakes aren’t up to par. For instance, faulty brakes greatly reduce efficiency, which can get in the way of proper operation of a commercial vehicle. It takes much longer for trucks to come to a complete stop, and with bad brakes it may actually be impossible to do so at all. To show just how many trucks are affected by bad brakes, in previous years a single day of comprehensive brake inspections resulted in 14 percent of trucks inspected being taken off the road.