OTTAWA — Let’s say on any given day, 10 of your trucks either drive through the scales or get stopped by a Ministry mobile inspection unit.

Of those 10, say eight get a “Have a nice day, you’re good to go.”

Of the two that get pulled around back for a level I, II, or III, let’s assume that one of them passes with no defects. But one gets yanked OSS.

So now try to guess what, according to the CVSA, your out-of-service rate is for the day.

That’s right. 50 percent. They didn’t count the ones who got waved through.

Because of the system that the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) employs to issue inspection statistics, only the inspections that generate paper reports get counted.  

All screen – triage inspections should be
documented during inspections says CTA

If they counted trucks that are sent on their way without intervention, the OOS rate would be 10 percent.

Instead, it’s 50 percent. And that statistic goes on your record.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) thinks this is absurd and should be changed to more accurately reflect the state of the nation’s trucks. The CTA estimates that about 96 of every 100 trucks that are “screen/triaged” are sent on their way without any documentation or recording of the event . But they don’t get counted.

That’s why the CTA has just submitted a discussion paper to the CVSA insisting that any time a commercial vehicle is required to enter a truck inspection station or is stopped by a mobile enforcement unit, an inspection should be deemed to have taken place and be recorded on the carrier’s profile.

To do this, it is critical that all inspections, including screen/triage inspections, are documented, says the trucking alliance.
CTA maintains that even in the short time it takes to conduct a screen/triage inspection — usually 35 to 40 seconds — a significant amount of intelligence is gathered on the driver and the vehicle. Said intelligence should be on the record.

The CTA is not calling for the end of screen/triage inspections – – they work; they are just not recorded – – but contends there has to be a way to efficiently collect the information on screen/triage inspections while still maintaining efficient flow of commercial vehicles through the inspection process.