The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) is releasing the 2010 North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria (OOSC), providing law enforcement and the motor carrier industry with a tool designed to improve commercial motor vehicle safety by promoting uniformity in compliance and enforcement throughout North America.

New OOSC criteria becomes effective throughout North America April 1 each year. The OOSC is used by certified state, provincial, territorial and federal law enforcement personnel in identifying Critical Vehicle Inspection Item violations following a roadside inspection that can prohibit a motor carrier or operator from driving or operating a commercial motor vehicle for a specified period of time or until the defective condition is corrected.

Approximately four million commercial vehicle roadside inspections are conducted annually across North America by government enforcement agencies.

Issued upon the completion of a Level I or V inspection, CVSA decals are only applied to commercial motor vehicles with no violations of the Critical Vehicle Inspection Items contained in the OOSC. The OOSC is a component of the North American Standard Inspection Program and developed through a collaborative process, which includes government and industry experts and is focused on the issues most critical to maintaining the safe operations of commercial vehicles.

Roadside inspection results are used, in part, to identify motor carriers that present a high-degree of risk to the motoring public. As a result, the data collected helps in determining which transportation companies will be selected for review under FMCSA’s new Comprehensive Safety Analysis (CSA 2010) initiative.

For more information on the North American Standard Inspection Program, or on how to obtain the North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria, visit www.cvsa.org. For more information on CSA 2010, visit http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/.