CVSA to Produce a Periodic Inspection Program

Landstar System Inc owns several motor carriers that operate approx. 8500 trucks and is concerned with the periodic inspections that are being performed by civilian, third party vendors throughout the US and Canada. Landstar's periodic inspection program requires that leased vehicles be inspected on a 120-day schedule. In many cases, trucking companies rely on third party vendors to perform periodic inspections. Audits of vendors contracted with Landstar have revealed that a number of these third party vendors lack both the knowledge of Appendix G and the training required to conduct periodic vehicle inspections that satisfy federal Regulations. It has also been discovered that only 15 of the 25 states listed in 49 CFR 396 as having mandatory state inspection programs do actually have such programs as noted in 49 CFR 396. Several states with state inspection programs have been found mixing Appendix G criteria and CVSA OOSC in their training.

Urgent - There is an industry-wide lack of knowledge of periodic inspections as described in 49 DFR 396. Motor carriers, repair shops, dealerships, and truck-stop garages alike have their own versions of periodic/annual inspections, and most confuse Appendix G criteria with CVSA OOSC. Landstar currently monitors third party inspection vendors for quality and terminates facilities that are found unsatisfactory. At present, there is no regulatory agency that monitors these Periodic Inspection providers to ensure that quality inspections are being provided, nor is there an agency available for reporting poor quality inspection vendors. In turn, they continue to perform sub-standard inspections for other motor carriers and remain largely unnoticed. This allows potentially unsafe vheicles to travel our highways daily with an FHWA and/or state inspection decal prominently displayed.

Landstar would like to see FMCSA and CVSA involved on the state level for producing a periodic inspection training program. Inspector/shop Certification Program and a system to monitor certified locations in all 50 states.