You seldom hear of government coming to the trucking industry to ask for assistance and guidance before issuing some rule, requirement or piece of legislation.
But that is exactly what the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) has done.
It has approached the Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) and asked for help in developing inspection guidelines for vehicle suspensions during a roadside inspection.
The groups
CVSA is an international not-for-profit organization comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal motor carrier safety officials and industry representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Its mission is to promote commercial motor vehicle safety and security by providing leadership to enforcement, industry and policy makers.
CVSA member jurisdictions are represented by various departments of transportation, public utility and service commissions, state police, highway patrols and ministries of transport.
TMC, a technical council of American Trucking Associations, is North America's premier technical society for truck equipment technology and maintenance professionals.
TMC features a diverse membership of equipment managers, service-dealers, owner-operators, industry suppliers and manufacturers, educators, academia and others that support the trucking industry.
CVSA is interested in knowing what conditions indicate an immediate failure of a rear suspension system. What is good, what is not so good and what is an out of service condition.
Uniform processes
One of the problems with vehicle inspections is that there has never really been a uniform inspection process for vehicle suspensions across all levels of government and law enforcement.
That leads to interpretation by inspections, and lead causes problems.
By working with the TMC, CVSA hopes to do away with this situation.
Think of how much could be accomplished with more government-industry interaction, especially before requirements and rules are set.
