Take Advantage of Annual Mandated Safety Inspections

In theory, the only things that ‘random inspections’ are supposed to ticket you for are safety infractions. It’s your business if you’re burning twice as much fuel as you need, but it’s the inspector’s business if you’re leaking that fuel anywhere on your truck. It’s also your business if your doors won’t lock, but it’s the inspector’s business if they don’t close. That being said, much of what counts as a safety violation can seem ridiculous, often because there are redundant protections. Some people don’t even know that their vehicle has marker lights on the side of their hood by the headlamp, usually in the same module.

And if the headlamp works, who cares? You're visible, aren’t you? But the marker light says more than “there’s a vehicle here”, it says “this is the front side corner of the vehicle”. And while this may seem a minor difference, it’s regulation because the difference can count big when you’re driving in the dark or the fog. And once upon a time, someone got seriously hurt or killed and an investigation said that this sort of light could have prevented the accident. So now those little amber lights are mandatory.

And so goes the story of every single minor defect on a vehicle. A small crack in a cross member will not lead to a truck tearing in two. But one crack leads to another, and another until there are enough weaknesses that the chassis is compromised and terrible things can happen. The point is, all these regulations came about for a reason. It may not seem a good reason to you, and it probably won’t make you feel better when you have a fine to pay and a repair you need to do on their timeline, but that’s how we got here. It gets worse too. The majority of these inspections only exist for the 1-2% of operators and fleets who are clueless and dangerous and will not fix a single thing unless they have no choice, and that’s where governments step in.

How inspectors go about their jobs inspecting

The first thing a safety inspector needs to do is completely forget about any good mechanical sense they may have. Usually, inspectors have none so this isn’t an issue. They are not there to say to you “this is no good it will need replacing/adjusting/etc. soon”. Their job is to say “this is currently out of specification and now needs replacing/adjusting/etc. immediately”. It may seem a minor difference, but it’s huge. What’s more, most inspectors are not allowed to take anything apart. Bolted battery cover? Guess who won’t be inspecting the battery cables and connections? Dust covers? Guess who won’t be calling a leaking wheel seal or contaminated brake pads?

Inspectors inspect, and judge against regulations with specifications. They need to explain, usually with numbers why a thing is a defect, minor or major. And they definitely are not forecasting, not least because they don’t know how much you drive or how heavy or aggressive you drive, so how can they say your brake pads are due in the next weeks or months? It can’t be done so it isn’t, or at least shouldn’t. Herein lies some of the magic of, more on that later.

Why look forward to mandated inspections, and how

The first thing to understand is that no inspection agency is going to say these rules are unnecessary and we should reduce the scope and therefore budget of our work. Another thing that is extremely unlikely to happen is a politician saying these safety regulations are unnecessary, let’s reduce the amount of safety on our roads. I don’t mean to sound fatalistic; I just want to make sure it’s clear that this won’t change for the better anytime soon. So, if these won’t go away, can we take advantage of them?

An annual safety inspection is a fact of operating heavy vehicles in most jurisdictions and so it should be accounted for when planning your maintenance. If you’re reading this article, I assume you plan your maintenance. If you can, you want to plan your annual inspection around regular maintenance. It’s a good idea to either pre-inspect the vehicle and then send it off for the official, or to have the vehicle inspected knowing you’ll also find components outside your specification like brake linings or tire wear. Many fleets who don’t care about preventative maintenance will simply use the mandated inspection as their own rather than pay for one themselves. It would just be an additional cost.

You can also see it as a second look at the work your mechanics do. It’s easy to miss a small point and mandated inspectors are used to doing nothing but inspections all day and will catch some things you probably wanted to have fixed anyways. Now that said, there’s a real opportunity here for people in many jurisdictions. You do need to check first, but this will work in many places. It’s not gaming the system; it’s protecting yourself from inaccurate or overzealous inspectors.

If an inspector reports that a given component needs to be replaced or adjusted, you don’t really have a choice. There are two things you can do in most jurisdictions (most, not all, so verify). First, you can measure yourself, compare it to the spec and show the inspector. Often the inspector is using a universal spec, and your component might demand different tolerances. The other thing you can do is replace or fix the part, show the inspector was wrong, and sue for expenses that occurred. In some places, this is a fairly simple process and is streamlined in search of protecting customers and keeping inspectors honest. You can usually find out if this is the case in your area.

The most straightforward way of looking at the advantage of a mandated annual safety inspection is to keep in mind that a defect was found at no additional cost. You had to pay for the annual inspection anyways, so that is moot. Had your mechanic or your outsourced repairer found it, you paid for that inspection. If the same type of government-mandated inspector found this same defect on your vehicle, which exists, and you didn’t know about, then not only would you have a repair you weren’t planning on, and a new deadline you weren’t planning on (nor was the dispatcher), but you also likely have a fine to pay.

If an annual inspection is a given, random inspections are a reality, and mechanics inspections are expensive, then being advised through a mandated annual inspection that repairs are necessary is saving you money. You may not be thrilled about a 48-hour notice, but you knew when you brought the vehicle in for inspection that it was a possibility, which is a lot more than you can say for the same thing but out on the road midway between your yard and the customer's dock. Especially if the defect is a major one that downs your truck or trailer immediately.