On April 1, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), a nonprofit association dedicated to improving commercial motor vehicle safety, published its 2020 North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria (OOSC).
The new criteria supersede all previous iterations.
The OOSC is intended to identify critical safety violations and provide guidelines for officers to use when conducting a roadside safety inspection on a vehicle or driver. Out-of-service violations can be particularly costly, as they force the driver, vehicle, or motor carrier to cease operations until the issues are fixed.
The 2021 OOSC was ratified on Oct. 30, 2020. This year’s edition of the OOSC includes four total changes. Some of the important highlights to be aware of include the following:
- Onboard recording devices cannot replace a compliant electronic logging device (ELD) when ELDs are required.
- Changes were made to language pending Canada’s implementation of the ELD requirement. The daily log was changed to the driver’s record of duty status.
- Criteria were changed for those operating in Canada without an ELD, but using a different form of record of duty status will not cause an out-of-service violation.
- Language was added to clarify requirements for center high-mounted stop lamps. Inoperative center high-mounted stop lamps that are required by regulation and are one of the critical inspection items will not be considered as a cause to be placed out-of-service. A vehicle will still be required to have at least one brake light in addition to the center high-mounted stop lam to avoid being placed out of service.
The out-of-service criteria are different from federal, state, and territorial regulations. Regulations are the minimum requirements for the operation of commercial motor vehicles in interstate or interprovincial commerce.
Go to the CVSA website for a full list of this year’s OOSC changes.
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