It's necessary to inspect your vehicle and your equipment no matter how efficient and thorough the maintenance policy of a company or vehicle owner may be. Even if your vehicle is one which is required by law to be inspected periodically, and carries a valid inspection certificate and decal, you should inspect it. As a driver, you need to know which equipment must be inspected before driving. You should also inspect your vehicle periodically during a long trip. You must be able to determine if any equipment or component is showing signs of failure or improper operation.

It is an offence to drive, or permit another person to drive, your vehicle on a highway if any vehicle part (or parts of its equipment) is defective.

Investing the few minutes needed to inspect a vehicle before starting out will often prevent you from having costly delays en route, and reduce the risk of collisions resulting from mechanical failure.

To carry out an efficient and thorough trip inspection in a short period of time, follow the systematic inspection procedures explained in the following pages for the applicable class of vehicle you will be operating. The trip inspection can be completed in any order, but conducting the inspection in the same order every time will ensure that you don’t miss any items.

Prior to a road test for a Class 1, 2, 3 or 4 licence and a G (heavy trailer) or S (school bus) Endorsement, you will be required to perform a trip inspection on the vehicle in which the road test will be taken. Based on the descriptions in the following pages, you will be asked to name and point out each item being inspected and describe what you are looking for in order to determine if the item is defective or not. This has to be done without any assistance and without using a checklist. The trip inspection described is the minimum type of inspection which is expected before a road test.

The purpose of testing your ability to complete a trip inspection is to assess your knowledge of vehicle safety requirements and to check the proper operation and condition of all equipment.

Note: The trip inspection test may not include all required items as per the applicable inspection schedule. It is your responsibility to ensure that your vehicle has had a full trip inspection completed within the last 24 hours as per regulations. This must be documented using a trip inspection report form.