Brake Safety Week – What Does It Mean for Towers?

Brian J Riker 

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) has announced their annual Brake Safety Week event will take place randomly throughout North America August 21-27. During this inspection blitz which will take place in all 50 states and include the Canadian Providences and Mexico, commercial vehicle inspectors will conduct the North American Standard Level I and V inspections with a focus on brake components, particularly hoses and tubing with chafing damages.  CVSA will issue decals for trucks with clean inspections in most jurisdictions. This event will occur Randomly throughout all of North America. It is a roadside inspection campaign that all 50 states, the Canadian Providences and Mexico participant in. 

For towers, this event raises several concerns. It also presents several opportunities. 

What are the Concerns?

First, it should act as a reminder to routinely inspect and service your truck’s braking system to ensure it is always in top working order. During Brake Safety Week 2021, brake system violations accounted for 38.9% of all out of service violations discovered. With one in five trucks on the highway today having defective brake components or out of adjustment brake linings, this is a serious problem. 

Your drivers should be visually inspecting the brake system daily, before the start of their shift, and throughout the day. They should check for signs of damaged components, cracked or missing drums, rotors or pads, oil and grease leaks from wheel seals that can contaminate the friction surfaces and signs of hoses or tubing that are loose, leaking or rubbing against something that can cause chafing. 

Low pressure warning devices must function properly and ABS lights must come on briefly then go out. If the ABS system is malfunctioning, a violation will be noted on the vehicle inspection report issued by the officer. It is not ok to operate a vehicle if the ABS light is illuminated or there is an air or hydraulic pressure leak. 

Let’s not forget about adjustment either! Modern air brake equipped vehicles have automatic slack adjusters that, when working properly, keep brakes adjusted for maximum efficiency. For automatic slack adjusters to work, the driver must make several full pressure brake applications, which is contrary to how most drivers use their brakes. The easiest way to compensate for this is to make sure air pressure is above 110 psi, release the parking brake (make sure the truck is on level ground and be prepared for it to roll) then make six full brake applications with the foot pedal. You may need to stop in the middle to allow air pressure to return to above 110 psi. These full applications will allow the automatic slack adjuster to do its job and compensate for wear in the brake linings. 

If you find your air brakes are often out of adjustment and the above method does not bring them back into adjustment, have a qualified mechanic inspect the foundation brake system for defects and make the appropriate repairs. It is not normal, or acceptable, to manually adjust automatic slack adjusters. This will damage them; it is a DOT violation if the automatic slack adjuster is found to not to funcgtion properly. 

Disc brake systems, both hydraulic and air, do not require adjustments as their design automatically compensates for wear. However, they must be inspected just as often as other brake designs. Hydraulic drum brakes still may require manual adjustment from time to time, but most of these systems are also equipped with automatic adjusting mechanisms. See the vehicle specific service guide for more information. 

How about some opportunities?  

For towers that also have mobile road service, this week should result in an increase in road service calls. Be prepared to replace brake hoses, brake chambers and other common components such as lights and wheel seals. 

If you have a service center, it may make sense to offer free or discounted brake system inspections in the days leading up to Brake Safety Week as a courtesy to your fleet customers. It is always better to find a defect in the shop rather on the side of the road, and these inspections often lead to service work to repair the discovered defects. Remember, the current statistics show that more than one in five commercial vehicles has some brake system defect, which is a golden opportunity for your service center to generate some revenue and help keep our roadways safe for everyone. 

The Dangers of Flooding Waters 

By Randall C. Resch           

Today, amid the Kentucky floods wreaking havoc on the eastern part of the state and claiming approximately 40 lives with more than one hundred missing, towers and other first responders need to be reminded of the dangers that lurk from mother nature’s indiscriminate acts of devastation.  

A Few Stories...  

In 1942, during the great flood that hit Northern Virginia and Maryland, John Elliott Buell, a tow owner and operator from Bethesda, MD, drowned trying to rescue a partially submerged and unoccupied car.   

Buell was responding to frantic calls that a motorist was inside the vehicle. He waded into the water with tow cable in-hand. As he attached the cable, the water’s rage caused the car to spin. Buell was swept away, and his body was discovered the next day hundreds of feet downstream.  

In August of 2021, Hurricane Ida hammered the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, causing extensive damage and overwhelming a dozen states combined. News surged with broadcasts showing cars submerged in swollen roadways and streams with cars whisked away by still moving floodwaters. Tow operators were shown wading through fast-moving water to hook-up casualty vehicles. At the midst of Ida, towers worked heroically in communities hit hardest by flooding, but I’m not so sure it was the safest of activities.    

The following month, Sergeant Brian Mohl, a veteran, 26-year Connecticut State Trooper was killed when his police cruiser was swept away by floodwaters. Was there some threat or life-saving reason so great that required the trooper to enter dangerous waters?  

Heed the Warnings  

Clearly, there’s huge risk to health and safety entering rapid water as we are now witnessing in Kentucky. As a tower, it’s my opinion to let flood waters subside before recovering a car.  

As an advocate for tow operator safety, I typically err on the side of safety knowing that many acts of fearlessness turn potentially deadly when things go wrong. For better than thirty-years, I have written about industry safety only to realize one, indisputable fact: towers often act without thinking of deadly consequences.  

Perhaps some towers have not learned that tow trucks, despite their taller profile, are not submarines!     

Therefore, carefully consider the potentially deadly consequences of wading or driving into swift and swollen waters. No job is worth dying for. 

Legislative Relief is Not One Size Fits All 

By Brian J Riker 

Recently the Towing and Recovery Association of America (TRAA) held its 4th Annual Legislative “Hill” Day where towers from across the United States converged on Washington, D.C. to meet with law makers and Agency representatives in a concerted effort to bring about real relief for towing companies nationwide. What struck me was how different each lawmaker responded to our requests for relief, and even more striking was the different approaches towers from different regions took to the issues. 

This highlights to me that there is no such thing as a one size fits all solution to our industry’s problems. Towers across the country deserve to be heard, regardless of their size, financial reserves, or geographical location. What works in the big cities or on the West Coast may not be right for a small town tower on the Great Plains or one located in New England. 

As such, your individual voice needs to be heard and the best way to do this is by joining your state association and the national association then participate in the meetings! An association needs input from its membership to know which way to go. While the Board of Directors of any good association is made up of active towers, they still only understand the industry from their perspective. Therefore, your active participation is required for best results. And, yes, even if your opinion differs from the majority, it is still important to be heard. Dissent is the catalyst for change. 

You may ask, how does this really affect me? I am a local company, so the federal government has little impact. I am here to say that is simply not true! Size and weight remain mostly a federal issue as do many other motor carrier compliance issues, many of which are notable examples of how one size does not fit all. Towing is continually lumped in with trucking in D.C. and that puts a heavy burden on operations. This generalization is the cornerstone of the fight that the national association brings to the federal lawmakers. 

The same can be said about state level issues that have the potential to impact the entire industry. It is no secret that the towing industry’s billing practices have been under attack for a long time. For whatever reason, the trucking and insurance industries seem to think that tow trucks run on good will, unicorn dust or maybe just happy thoughts. They seem to have taken issue with the industry’s desire to make a reasonable profit for the risk taken and effort expended daily. This is most recently noted in the bad legislation in Maryland and Colorado restricting a tower’s rights to collect payment or hold vehicles as collateral until payment is made. 

This is where having a state association that is also a member of the national association is a huge member benefit, when used properly. Oftentimes TRAA will be asked to weigh in on state issues, offering a letter of support or opposition and access to their resources for the benefit of their state association members. This allows for model legislation to be enacted that is good for the industry while also increasing the effort to fight bad legislation. 

You may ask, why should I care about what happens several states away? The answer is simple: states often look to other states for examples on how they have addressed an issue and then put the same solution into place in their state. This is how bad ideas, such as the restrictions on hold vehicles for payment in Maryland, pop up in faraway states like Colorado. 

The one size fits all model of governing is here to stay. As an industry we must work together to combat these overburdensome regulations and laws before they drive us into extinction. Speak up, be active and join associations that support your industry segment. 

Bad rules begin locally and like a cancer spread into federal legislation quickly. Only with swift, coordinated, and cooperative efforts can our industry stop the spread of bad legislation.