The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance just released results from the 2025 Brake Safety Week, and if you’re experiencing déjà vu, you’re not alone. Inspectors pulled 2,296 commercial vehicles off the road during a single week in August because their brakes were so defective they could not operate legally, resulting in a 15.1% out-of-service rate.
That’s virtually identical to 2024’s results, when 2,370 vehicles were placed OOS out of 15,752 inspections for a 15% failure rate. Different year. Same problem.
During Aug. 24-30, 2025, inspectors across 52 North American jurisdictions conducted 15,175 commercial vehicle brake system inspections. In the U.S., 13,700 inspections yielded 2,035 brake-related OOS violations, for a 14.9% failure rate. Canada’s 1,459 inspections produced 260 violations, a 17.8% failure rate. Mexico conducted 16 inspections with one violation at 6.3%.
The most common violation? Twenty percent or more of the vehicle’s service brakes were out of service. Inspectors identified 1,199 such violations, a 52.2% OOS rate within that category alone.
Beyond that, inspectors documented:
- 375 other brake violations
- 306 brake hose and tube defects
- 199 steering axle violations
- 100 air loss rate failures
This year’s focus on drums and rotors revealed 113 violations, with 39 vehicles placed OOS specifically for rotor or drum defects. The breakdown: 22 broken rotors on air disc brakes, 50 rusted rotors, 32 broken drums on S-cam brakes, plus multiple hydraulic system failures.
Broken rotors. Rusted rotors. Broken drums. These aren’t components that suddenly failed without warning. These deteriorated over time while someone, a driver, a mechanic, a fleet manager, looked them over during inspections and decided they were good enough to keep rolling.
Compare 2025 to 2024 and the pattern is wildly predictable:
- 2024: 15,752 inspections, 2,370 OOS violations, 15.0% failure rate
- 2025: 15,175 inspections, 2,296 OOS violations, 15.1% failure rate
We conducted essentially the same enforcement effort, found essentially the same failure rate, and will presumably do absolutely nothing different about it. CVSA has already scheduled next year’s Brake Safety Week for Aug. 23-29, 2026, where we’ll almost certainly see the same results again. This is a systemic issue.
Fifteen states deployed performance-based brake testers during this year’s enforcement week, conducting 528 inspections. They measure actual braking performance against a minimum 43.5% efficiency standard required by federal regulations.
Twenty-five vehicles, 4.7%, failed to meet that minimum standard. These trucks couldn’t adequately brake to pass a mechanical test, yet they were operating on public roads until an inspector stopped them.
Think about that. These vehicles weren’t borderline cases where a mechanic might disagree with an inspector’s judgment. They literally couldn’t generate enough braking force to meet the minimum safety threshold, yet they were out there anyway.
Every truck pulled over for brake violations during CVSA Brake Week passed through multiple failure points that nobody wants to discuss:
- Pre-trip inspections: Federal regulations require drivers to conduct pre-trip inspections and document defects. How many of these 2,296 vehicles had brake issues that drivers either didn’t check or didn’t report?
- Periodic maintenance: Carriers must maintain vehicles in a safe operating condition. When was the last time these vehicles received proper brake inspections? What did maintenance records show, or were they fabricated after the fact?
- Management oversight: Someone in each carrier’s operation is responsible for ensuring vehicles are safe before dispatch. Did anyone actually verify brake conditions, or did they just assume everything was okay?
The enforcement action stops at the roadside. The inspector finds bad brakes, the vehicle gets placed out of service, the carrier fixes the brakes, and the vehicle goes back in service. There’s rarely any follow-up investigation into how those brakes got that bad or who was responsible for letting a vehicle operate in that condition.
We treat brake violations as maintenance issues when they’re actually compliance failures, revealing systemic problems within carrier operations.
CVSA notes that 84.9% of inspected vehicles didn’t have OOS brake violations. The industry will spin that as success; most trucks passed!
That framing is dangerous nonsense.
An 85% pass rate during a focused enforcement week when carriers know inspections are happening means the actual brake compliance rate during normal operations is almost certainly worse. Even under ideal inspection conditions, with inspectors specifically looking for brake problems, 15 out of every 100 trucks checked were found to be unsafe to continue.
CVSA conducts approximately 4 million inspections annually among hundreds of millions of commercial vehicle trips. The vast majority of trucks never get inspected, meaning defective brake systems can operate indefinitely until they either cause a crash or are randomly caught.
Brake-related violations consistently rank as the most-cited out-of-service vehicle violation during roadside inspections. We know this. CVSA dedicates an entire week each year to brake safety through its Operation Airbrake Program, specifically to reduce brake failures through inspections and education.
Yet here we are in 2025, still pulling 15% of inspected vehicles during a week when the industry should be at its best. What does that tell us about brake conditions during the other 51 weeks when the spotlight isn’t shining?
Brake failures don’t just result in OOS violations and tow bills. They result in crashes, injuries, and fatalities. An 80,000-pound truck traveling at 65 mph needs approximately 525 feet to stop under ideal conditions with properly functioning brakes. Add defective brakes, worn drums, rusted rotors, or air system leaks, and stopping distances increase dramatically, often beyond the driver’s ability to avoid a collision, even with early hazard recognition.
We see it repeatedly in crash investigations: brake defects identified post-crash that were clearly pre-existing conditions. Drums worn through. Rotors with cracks. Air system components have been leaking for weeks. All conditions that inspection should have caught before a crash occurred.
When a vehicle is placed OOS for brake violations, the immediate fix is performed: the carrier repairs the defects, the inspector clears the vehicle, and operation resumes. What doesn’t happen is any meaningful investigation into compliance failures that allowed those defects to develop.
What should happen:
- FMCSA reviews maintenance records to determine if brake problems were previously reported and ignored
- SMS scores get updated to reflect brake system maintenance failures
- Repeat offenders face escalating enforcement, including safety audits and potential authority revocation
- Carriers with patterns of brake violations get flagged for enhanced inspections
What actually happens:
- Vehicle gets fixed
- The carrier pays the fine
- The truck goes back in service
- Everyone moves on until the next inspection
There’s no systemic accountability for carriers that consistently put defective vehicles on the road. There’s no enhanced scrutiny for drivers who keep signing off on pre-trip inspections despite obvious brake defects. There are no consequences for mechanics who approve inspections while components are visibly deteriorating.
CVSA’s 2025 Brake Safety Week results aren’t surprising. They’re virtually identical to 2024. Fifteen percent failure rate then, 15% now, and almost certainly 15% again when inspectors conduct next year’s enforcement week Aug. 23-29, 2026.
We have adequate regulations, trained inspectors, and enforcement mechanisms. What’s missing is the institutional will to hold carriers accountable for operating vehicles with defective safety systems.
Carriers know brakes matter. Drivers know brakes matter. What’s missing are consequences meaningful enough to make properly maintaining brake systems more attractive than running them until they fail or get caught.
We’ll inspect another 15,000 vehicles next August, pull another 15% for brake violations, publish another report, and move on without addressing why this keeps happening year after year.
Meanwhile, trucks with defective brakes continue operating on public roads, drivers continue signing off on pre-trip inspections without actually checking brake conditions, carriers continue dispatching equipment with known maintenance issues, and we all pretend the next safety initiative will somehow fix what is fundamentally a compliance and accountability crisis.
Brake Safety Week proves we know how to find defective brakes. What we apparently don’t know, or don’t want to know, is how to prevent them from being on the road in the first place.
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