Glossary
Transportation Inspector Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential transportation inspector terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key transportation inspector vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in transportation inspector training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Airworthiness
- Whether an aircraft meets safety requirements.
- Brake stroke
- How far a brake pushrod travels, used to check adjustment.
- Compliance review
- An audit of a carrier’s safety management.
- CSA
- Compliance, Safety, Accountability: FMCSA’s carrier scoring system.
- CVSA
- Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.
- Defect
- A condition that violates safety rules.
- ELD
- Electronic logging device.
- FMCSA
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
- FMCSRs
- Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.
- FRA
- Federal Railroad Administration.
- Hours of service
- Rules limiting driving and duty time.
- Level I inspection
- A full inspection of the driver and vehicle.
- Out-of-service order
- An order that stops a vehicle or driver until problems are fixed.
- Placard
- A sign identifying hazardous materials on a vehicle.
- Shipping papers
- Documents describing hazardous materials.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Transportation Inspector practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Transportation Inspector training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.