Brakes, tires, lights: what puts a truck out of service?

Chapter 01

Which violations on the report put the truck out of service?

Only the ones the officer marks as out of service. The officer must mark a truck out of service when its condition “would likely cause an accident or a breakdown”. The officer then puts an “Out-of-Service Vehicle” sticker on it (the inspection rule). To decide, the officer uses the North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria. CVSA, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, writes them and calls them “the pass-fail criteria for inspections” (CVSA’s page on the criteria). Other violations on the report still need to be fixed, but do not themselves impose an out-of-service order.

Here is how that looks in real life. Say you run six trucks. On Tuesday, October 13, 2026, the driver of your truck 4 pulls into a scale with a loaded van trailer. The officer does a full inspection and hands over a report with three violations. One brake on the tractor’s drive axle is out of adjustment. The left steer tire is worn to 1/32 of an inch in one of its main grooves. And one clearance lamp on the trailer is out. Clearance lamps are the small lights that show how wide the vehicle is. Your driver sends you a photo of the report. What he should do from the moment he is stopped is in what to do when your truck is pulled over.

Now look at how the report treats each line. On yours, the officer marked only the steer tire as out of service and put the sticker on the tractor. The brake and the lamp are violations, but the officer did not mark them. The federal rules call this an out-of-service order. It is an officer’s declaration that a driver, a truck or a company’s operation is out of service. It can rest on the federal rules or on the out-of-service criteria (the federal definitions).

Why the tire and not the other two? We cannot quote the criteria. CVSA sells them as a handbook and updates them every April 1 (CVSA’s page on the criteria). But public papers show where some lines fall. Start with the tire. The tire rule says a steer tire needs at least 4/32 of an inch of tread at any point on a major groove. Other tires need 2/32 (the tire rule). So your tire broke the rule. FMCSA’s scoring manual also lists a separate out-of-service violation for a steer tire. It covers tread “less than 2/32 of inch on a major tread groove” (the scoring manual, version 3.21). For the other tires, that lower line is 1/32 in two grooves side by side. A steer tire at 3/32 breaks the rule but stays above the lower line. Yours, at 1/32, is under it.

Brakes are judged by count. CVSA’s public letter on this year’s changes speaks of “the 20% defective brakes criterion” (CVSA’s letter on the 2026 changes). FMCSA’s manual describes the same violation. The truck is out of service when 20% or more of its service brakes are defective. With a trailer attached, the count covers the truck and trailer together (the scoring manual). Say your tractor and trailer have ten brakes between them. One bad brake is 10%. Two would reach 20%. How the handbook counts a brake that is only out of adjustment, rather than dead, is in the part we cannot quote.

What does out of adjustment mean? When the driver brakes, a push rod comes out of the brake chamber, the round can near each wheel. If the rod travels too far, the brake is out of adjustment. The brake parts rule sets the limit by chamber size. For a standard type 30 chamber, it is 2 inches. For a long-stroke type 30, it is 2 and a half inches (the brake parts rule). Brakes out of adjustment are a violation even when the truck is not parked for them.

The lamp is the plainest case. The lamp rule says every required lamp must be “capable of being operated at all times” (the lamp rule). A dead clearance lamp breaks it. On your report, the officer wrote it up as a violation only.

Chapter 02

What must be fixed before the truck can move?

Every defect marked out of service must be repaired before the truck moves at all. No one may drive it until “all repairs required by the ‘out-of-service notice’” are done. No one may take the sticker off before then either (the inspection rule). Towing counts as driving, with one exception: a tow truck that lifts it with a crane or hoist. The other violations do not hold the truck at the scale. But you must still fix them, and a safety defect should not wait for the end of the trip.

For your truck 4, the steer tire has to be replaced where the truck stands. You call a mobile tire service near the scale. Say it arrives three hours later and mounts a new tire. Now the out-of-service repair is done, and the truck may move. Keep the tire invoice. It shows what was done, where and when, and you will need it for the report.

If no tire service can come, the truck leaves only on a tow truck with a crane or hoist (the inspection rule). Towing it any other way counts as operating it. The same goes for a defect that cannot be fixed at the roadside, like a broken brake part. The truck goes to the shop on the hook, and the sticker stays on until the shop has done the repairs.

Do not let anyone move the truck early. Moving it before the repairs breaks the inspection rule, and a company can be fined up to $19,246 for each violation (the federal penalty schedule). A driver convicted of breaking a vehicle out-of-service order loses the right to drive a truck for 180 days to a year the first time. A second time within 10 years costs from 2 to 5 years (the disqualification rules). The CDL rules bind you too. An employer may not let a driver run a truck under an order it “knows or should reasonably know” about (the employer rule). For a new carrier, it is also one of the 16 automatic failures of the new entrant safety audit (the audit failure rule). Our page on the audit’s automatic failures explains that list.

Then come the other two violations. The truck may leave the scale with them. But the inspection rule says the violations on the report “shall be corrected” under the rule for driver reports (the inspection rule). Under that rule, you repair a defect “likely to affect the safety of operation” before a driver runs the truck again (the driver report rule). A truck found unsafe on the road may go only “to the nearest place where repairs can safely be effected” (the rule on unsafe trucks). In plain words, treat a brake problem as a job for the nearest shop, not for the end of the load.

So your driver swaps the bulb in the clearance lamp before leaving the scale. Then the truck goes to the nearest truck shop. The mechanic adjusts the brake and checks why it drifted. Trucks with air brakes built on or after October 20, 1994, must have automatic brake adjusters (the brake adjuster rule). So on such a truck the brake is supposed to stay in adjustment by itself. When it does not, ask the shop to find out why, not only to turn the adjuster. Get a work order that names the brake, the repair and the date.

Chapter 03

How do I sign off the repairs and close the report?

You certify the repairs on the report itself. Within 15 days after the inspection, a company official signs the carrier’s part of the form, with a title and the date. That signature certifies that every violation was corrected. Since July 22, 2026, you return the signed report only if the State that issued it asks for it. Either way, you keep a copy for 12 months from the inspection. It stays at your main place of business or where the truck is kept (the inspection rule).

The driver’s part comes first. A driver who gets an inspection report must give it to the company at the next terminal. If the driver will not get there within 24 hours, the report goes at once, by mail, fax or another quick way (the inspection rule). Your driver’s photo from the scale is one way to send the report promptly, as the rule requires.

Now count your days. The inspection was on Tuesday, October 13, so your 15 days end on Wednesday, October 28. By Monday, October 19, all three repairs are done. You have the papers: the tire invoice, the shop’s work order for the brake, and your driver’s note about the bulb. That day you sign the report as the company official, with your title and the date.

Does the signed report go back to the State? Until July 22, 2026, the rule said yes, every time. FMCSA changed that in June 2026. Now completed forms “will only be returned to those States that request them” (the June 2026 change). FMCSA also said it will not publish a list of the States that ask. So check the form and the State’s instructions. If the State asks, send it to the address printed on the form. Then keep your copy until October 13, 2027. Older guides that tell you to mail every report back are out of date.

Put the repair papers in the truck’s file too. For each truck, you keep a record of its inspections, repairs and maintenance, with the date and what was done (the maintenance rule). Those records stay where the truck is kept or maintained for 1 year. When a truck leaves your company, you keep them for 6 more months.

If a violation on the report is simply wrong, fixing the truck does not take it off your record. That takes a request through FMCSA’s DataQs system, explained in how to dispute a violation in DataQs. The 15 days to certify the repairs still run while you do that.

Chapter 04

What does this do to my scores, and how do I stop the next one?

Each violation counts in FMCSA’s safety scores, which most people call CSA scores, for 24 months. Brake, tire and lamp violations go into the category FMCSA calls Vehicle Maintenance. FMCSA rates each violation from 1 to 10 for how serious it is, and adds 2 more when it put the truck out of service. A violation also counts three times in its first six months and twice in the next six. In its second year it counts once (the scoring manual, version 3.21). The best place to stop the next one is on your other five trucks.

Owners often ask how many CSA points a violation costs. When FMCSA added the out-of-service steer tire violation in 2017, the manual rated it 8. With the 2 extra for out of service, that makes 10. In its first six months it counts three times, so 30 (the scoring manual). We could not open FMCSA’s current full list of ratings. So we cannot confirm that number today, or give the numbers for your brake and your lamp. Two more rules from the manual matter. A violation written several times on one inspection counts once for that inspection. And violations on the report count “whether or not a citation is issued”, so a violation with no ticket still counts.

Your score is a comparison with other carriers. FMCSA adds up your weighted violations and divides them by your weighted vehicle inspections, clean ones included. So every clean inspection helps. Then it ranks you from 0 to 100 against carriers with a similar number of inspections. A carrier with fewer than five vehicle inspections gets no ranking here. For a general freight carrier, the line is 80. At 80 or more, a symbol appears next to this category, and you become a priority for FMCSA’s attention (the scoring manual).

So check the other five trucks against the same rules the officer used. Start with the brakes. Every brake the truck has must work at all times (the rule on working brakes). The push rods must stay within the limit for their chamber size. Off the steer axle, the lining of an air drum brake must be at least 1/4 inch thick at the shoe center. An air disc pad must be at least 1/8 inch (the brake parts rule). Brake hoses and tubing must be secured against rubbing and kinking and kept away from the exhaust. Their joints must not leak (the brake hose rule). The parking brake must hold the loaded truck on a public road free of ice and snow (the parking brake rule). And a trailer’s brakes must come on by themselves if it breaks away, and stay on for at least 15 minutes (the breakaway rule).

Then the tires. No tire may show ply or belt through the tread or sidewall, or have a tread or sidewall separation. None may be flat, have a leak you can hear, or have a cut down to the ply. Steer tires need 4/32 of an inch of tread and the others 2/32. A regrooved tire rated to carry 4,920 pounds or more may not go on the front of a truck or tractor. And no tire may carry more weight than its sidewall allows, or run below the pressure set for its load (the tire rule). The federal tire rule says nothing about a tire’s age.

Then the lamps. Every required lamp must work, and no lamp or reflector may be hidden by the load, a tailgate or dirt (the lamp rule). Stop lamps must light when the driver brakes. Lamps must burn steady, except turn signals and hazard lamps (the rule on lamps other than headlamps). Which lamps and reflectors each vehicle needs, and where, is a long table in the rule on lamps and reflectors (the lamp table). Reflectors go where that table says, fixed to a rigid part of the vehicle (the reflector rule). Your shop can check a truck against the table.

Your drivers are your daily check. With more than one truck, each driver must look at the brakes, parking brake, lamps and reflectors, tires and more. At the end of each day’s work, the driver writes up any defect that would affect safety. This is the driver vehicle inspection report, or DVIR. With no defect, no report is needed. You repair those defects before the truck runs again, and you certify the repair on the report. You keep these reports for 3 months (the driver report rule). Before driving, the next driver reviews the last report and signs that the repairs were certified (the driver inspection rule). Since March 23, 2026, the rule says outright that these reports may be electronic (the February 2026 rule). Every truck also needs its yearly inspection, explained in our guide to the annual inspection. And a load can park a truck too, if the way it is loaded would likely cause a crash (the inspection rule). That is covered in our guide to cargo securement.

What has changed lately? Since July 22, 2026, the signed report goes back only to a State that asks for it (the June 2026 change). The criteria change every April 1, and 17 changes took effect on April 1, 2026 (CVSA’s letter on the 2026 changes). One of them concerns a trailer whose brake air line is disconnected. It is now put out of service only if the whole combination fails the 20% brake count. There are also things we could not check. We did not read the paid handbook. FMCSA’s full list of violation ratings is on a site that blocks our tools. And no one has published which States ask for the report back.

If you want someone to chase the repair after a roadside inspection and keep each truck’s repair papers in order, here is what we offer.