Normal roadside safety inspections and traffic enforcement will continue
 
By Al Muskewitz
 
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance has postponed this year’s International Roadcheck out of an abundance of caution over COVID-19 and the trucking industry’s importance to the country’s response to the outbreak.
 
The three-day event, the largest targeted enforcement program on commercial vehicles in the world, was scheduled for May 5-7. The Alliance will monitor the status of the pandemic and select a new date, it said in a news release, “when it’s safe and reasonable to do so.”
 
Normal roadside safety inspections and traffic enforcement will continue, however, with enforcement personnel following their departmental health and safety policies and procedures.
 
“As we urgently respond to this time-sensitive crisis, we must remain diligent and committed to ensuring that the commercial motor vehicles and drivers providing essential goods and services to our communities are following motor carrier safety regulations,” said CVSA President Sgt. John Samis with the Delaware State Police. “Safety doesn’t take a break. It is always our top priority.
 
“International Roadcheck has run on-schedule for the past 32 years so its postponement was thoroughly and thoughtfully discussed before we made this decision, but it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. This experience is unprecedented in our modern society and we need to do all that we can to help stop the spread of this global pandemic.”
 
The data collected from the more than 65,000 inspections done annually during the Roadcheck provides a benchmark for the industry and a roadmap for guidance and education. While inspectors can put drivers and vehicles out of service for any safety issue uncovered during the inspection, this year’s focus was on driver requirements such as valid CDLs, up-to-date (and available) medical certificates and hours-of-service records.
 
As the world battles the coronavirus outbreak and truckers respond to the nation’s need for supplies, the FMCSA has issued a series of regulatory waivers to ease pressure on the industry. The most recent waiver addressed the renewal of expired credentials and today updated guidance on drug and alcohol testing during this period of emergency.
 
“It’s just the wrong time (to have the Roadcheck),” said Kerri Wirachowsky, the director of the CVSA’s roadside inspection program. “It’s just not appropriate to do it at this time.
 
“Obviously under the current situation we don’t want to hold up traffic delivering emergency equipment for potentially a random inspection. Nobody wants to be that hurdle in place of something getting to where it needs to go.”
 
This year’s Roadcheck was moved to May in an attempt to avoid the summer heat in some jurisdictions.
 
“So much for our little test trial to see how May worked out,” Wirachowsky said. “Not something anybody could have foreseen, I’m afraid, half a year ago.”
 
Last week, the CVSA canceled its scheduled April events. Operation Safe Driver Week (July 12-18) and Brake Safety Week (Aug. 23-29) remain as scheduled while Alliance officials continue to monitor the outbreak and follow guidance from public health officials.