NTSB Safety Recommendation H-06-01 and -02

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                   NTSB SAFETY RECOMMENDATION
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National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594

February 15, 2006

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Safety Recommendation H-06-01-02

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The National Transportation Safety Board makes the following safety
recommendations to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: Work
with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance to develop and add to the
North American Standard Inspection training materials a module that
emphasizes that manually adjusting automatic slack adjusters is
dangerous and should not be done, except during installation or in an
emergency to move the vehicle to a repair facility, because manual
adjustment of this brake component (1) fails to address the true reason
why the brakes are not maintaining adjustment, giving the operator a
false sense of security about the effectiveness of the brakes, which are
likely to go out of adjustment again soon, and (2) causes abnormal wear
to the internal adjusting mechanism for most automatic slack adjusters,
which may lead to failure of this brake component. (H-06-1) Require
drivers of commercial vehicles that weigh less than 26,000 pounds and
are equipped with air brakes to undergo training and testing to
demonstrate proficiency in the inspection and operation of air-braked
vehicles; the training should emphasize that manually adjusting
automatic slack adjusters is dangerous and should not be done, except
during installation or in an emergency to move the vehicle to a repair
facility. (H-06-2)




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http://www.ntsb.gov/recs/letters/2006/H06_1_2.pdf

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