When enforcement officials order a truck off the road for safety reasons, likely as not the cause is defective brakes.

According to a new report prepared for the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, and the Ontario Trucking Association, defective or poorly adjusted brakes remain the leading reason for taking commercial vehicles off North American highways.

The report, a product of the North American Brake Safety Conference held last September in Toronto, makes a dozen recommendations on ways to reduce the occurrence of brake defects—an effort the report's authors believe should help reduce the accident rate for commercial vehicles. The conference participants included manufacturers, regulators, drivers, carriers, engineers, and enforcement officials.

The report calls for improving knowledge of brake-safety issues, better hardware, and strict enforcement of tougher regulations. The most pressing concern, the report says, is compliance with brake adjustment guidelines, which is the focus of most of the document's recommendations.

The final report and the proceedings of the brake-safety conference are available on the Web sites of the sponsor organizations. For more information, visit www.cvsa.org, www.ccmta.ca, or www.ontruck.org.