The annual three-day roadside commercial vehicle safety crackdown known as Roadcheck will focus this year on cargo securement and educating drivers about the upcoming changes in hours of service regulations.

The event, organized by the truck safety officials group the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, involves thousands of CVSA-certified local, state and federal commercial vehicle inspections fanning out across North America at some 1,500 locations, June 4-6.

“We want to encourage understanding by drivers and carrier managers of the driver and vehicle regulations, to conduct inspections, and issue violations where necessary,” says William P. Schaefer, director, vehicle programs, CVSA. “We collect vehicle, driver, and hazardous materials inspection violation data for comparison to previous years.”

He says part of the effort will also include distributing visor cards, provided by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, that outline the new driver hours of service regulations effective July 1, 2013. Those regulations are currently undergoing a legal challenge, but there is no guarantee a court will rule on it by time the new rules take effect.

Since the first Roadcheck in 1988, more than a million roadside inspections have been conducted during the events. Last year 74,072 truck and bus inspections were performed during Roadcheck. Of those inspections, 48,815 were North American Standard Level 1 inspections, the most comprehensive roadside inspection. Of those, 22.4% of vehicles and 3.9% of drivers were placed out of service, both near historic lows.

CVSA offers a checklist of safety tips of what to check out on trucks, which are many of the same items inspectors will be looking for.

Federal Safety regulators were left answering questions about their technical ability this week as a prominent safety group questioned whether they had the technical prowess to assess the safety of the complex electronics in modern vehicles.

Does the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration know what it is talking about? That is the question being asked after a branch of the National Academy of Sciences reported that inspectors were struggling with the complex hardware and software being installed in today’s vehicles. As both trucks and cars have advanced technologically over the last couple of decades, investigators have not been able to keep up and ensure safety.

The study was originally launched in 2010 after Toyota was forced to withdraw millions of vehicles because of sticking accelerators and possible problems with the electronic throttle. The NAS underlined that in that study, the regulators had come to the correct conclusion — backed up by an independent study by NASA — however, they asked if the Administration would have been able to come up with the conclusion without the help of NASA.

The board recommended that the Administration get more technical help and training for its investigators and refine its investigation methods. Furthermore they recommended that new vehicles be fitted with ‘black boxes’ as found in airplanes; a suggestion the NHTSA itself  has been promoting for several years now.