OOSC, Part II, 11. Tires - Operation Tire Check

As part of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) the Office of Defect Investigation (ODI) is responsible for investigating vehicle safety defects and ensuring they are corrected in order to prevent death, injury and economic loss. As partners in ensuring vehicle safety CVSA inspectors conduct over 3 million roadside inspections every year. These inspections are very successful in ensuring commercial vehicle operators are running and maintaining a safe fleet of vehicles. These inspections rarely however result in feedback to ODI concerning potential manufacturing or design defects. ODI feels that with this many inspections occurring annually, there is a missed opportunity to identify and remedy safety defects on these vehicles before they result in death or injury. We believe that these defects are likely not reported due to inspectors not being aware of who to report the issues to as well as being burdensome to do so.

In order for ODI’s Medium and Heavy Duty Vehicle Division (MHDVD) to do its job effectively it needs input from those who drive, maintain, and inspect the vehicles. Roadside inspectors are uniquely positioned to assist the MHDVD accomplish its mission. MHDVD recently launched a hotline number(844-SAF-TRUCK = 844-723-8782) and email address([email protected] ) dedicated to roadside inspectors. The purpose of this was to provide the inspectors with an easy means to communicate with ODI about potential defects. The contact information was recently added to the roadside inspector curriculum. Adding it to the curriculum reaches new inspectors. ODI would like to reach all inspectors. Making it part of the inspection checklist would accomplish this. Another step ODI has identified to facilitate communication with roadside inspectors would be to include a checkbox on the electronic inspection report systems. If checked, the report would then go directly to ODI for follow up with the inspector, fleet and OEM.

It is requested that CVSA include on the inspection checklist to contact NHTSA’s Office of Defect Investigation when a manufacturing or design defect condition is suspected on a vehicle inspection. Include a new checkbox on the electronic inspection report systems. If checked, the report would then go directly to ODI for follow up with the inspector, fleet and OEM.