CVSA Out-of-Service Criteria 2026 Guide | HVI

The CVSA North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria are the pass-fail standards that certified commercial motor vehicle enforcement officers use during roadside inspections to determine whether a driver or vehicle presents an imminent hazard and must be placed out of service. They are developed and maintained by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, updated annually, and enforced uniformly across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Federal regulations describe what must be inspected and what safe operation looks like; the OOSC defines the specific defect thresholds at which a truck or driver is grounded until the condition is corrected. The 2026 edition took effect April 1, 2026, replacing all previous versions, with 17 changes ratified by CVSA voting members on October 17, 2025. A vehicle placed OOS cannot be moved except by tow, and a driver placed OOS cannot operate until the condition is resolved — for example, until an HOS rest period is completed or a valid medical certificate is produced.

Seventeen changes were approved for 2026, with the highest-impact ones affecting brakes, wheels, cargo securement, and driver conduct. On brakes: hydraulic and electric brake lining thickness was updated to less than 1/16 inch (1.6 mm) to align U.S. and Canadian standards, "parking brake" was renamed "parking/emergency brake" to reflect both functions, and disconnected service air connections (gladhands) now fall under the 20% brake defect threshold rather than triggering automatic OOS. On wheels: missing rim material exceeding 3 inches (76.2 mm) in the bead area was added as an explicit OOS trigger. On cargo securement: the ExTe Com90 log securement system was added, and a wire-rope damage chart was added to the tiedown defect table. On drivers: driver possession of wine or beer at 0.5% or more alcohol content, or any distilled spirit, while on duty or operating became an OOS trigger, and CDL endorsement/restriction language was separated for clearer violation coding. Other 2026 changes address countersunk screws on upper couplers, hazmat placarding refinements, and administrative clarifications throughout the document.

Under CVSA criteria, if 20% or more of a vehicle's brakes are defective or out of adjustment, the entire vehicle is placed out of service — even if the other 80% are functioning normally. The rule is applied to the total brake count across the whole combination, not per axle. On a standard 10-brake tractor-trailer, that means just 2 defective brakes trigger OOS. On a 4-brake straight truck, 1 defective brake hits the threshold. What counts as "defective" includes out-of-adjustment (pushrod stroke past the legal limit for the brake chamber type — 2.0 inches for Type 30), brake lining below the minimum thickness threshold, chamber diaphragm leaks, brake hose damage exposing the reinforcement layer, and mechanical component failures. Under the 2026 update, a disconnected service air connection between tractor and trailer only triggers OOS if the resulting count exceeds the 20% threshold — a softening from prior automatic OOS treatment. Roadside adjustment is not permitted after OOS; a certified mechanic or qualified inspector must perform and sign off the repair before the vehicle can be moved.

DOT regulations under 49 CFR 393.75 set the minimum operational standards — 4/32 inch tread depth on steer axles and 2/32 inch on drive and trailer positions. CVSA out-of-service criteria are stricter thresholds at which vehicles are immediately removed from service during a roadside inspection: 2/32 inch steer and 1/32 inch other positions. A tire can be technically "legal" under DOT minimums and still trigger an OOS order under CVSA criteria — because DOT sets the ongoing operational floor while CVSA defines the immediate-hazard threshold. In practice this means smart fleets target replacement well above both standards, giving themselves a margin against wear between planned replacements and roadside stops. Other tire OOS conditions include any exposed cord or belt material through tread or sidewall (immediate OOS regardless of depth), tire inflation below 50% of the maximum sidewall-rated pressure, flat tires with audible leaks, and improper repairs — plugs are prohibited on steer tires, for example.

Under the 2026 CSA overhaul now fully in effect, out-of-service violations carry a severity weight of 2 in the Safety Measurement System calculation — double the weight of non-OOS violations, which count as severity weight 1. That doubling applies immediately and compounds across the 12-month violation window (down from 24 months under the prior system) used to determine intervention prioritization. In practical terms, a single brake OOS violation has as much percentile impact as two moderate-severity non-OOS violations. On top of the severity weighting, OOS violations also feed directly into the newly split Vehicle Maintenance categories: the traditional Vehicle Maintenance BASIC covers shop-detected defects, and the new Vehicle Maintenance: Driver Observed category scores defects a walk-around should have caught. OOS violations for brakes, tires, and lighting that a competent pre-trip would have found land in the Driver Observed BASIC and directly reflect DVIR quality. The compounding effect makes preventing OOS-level defects roughly twice as valuable as preventing minor citations for the same amount of preventive effort.