DOT compliance and audit checklist for trucking companies

This DOT compliance and audit checklist is for a motor carrier with one to fifty trucks to see whether the records FMCSA expects are actually in place. It is organised the way a safety investigator organises a compliance review: by the six factors they look at, general, driver, operational, vehicle, hazardous materials and accident. Each line names the paragraph it comes from so you can check it yourself. Print it, tick what you have, and the gaps are your work list.

Before you start: registration and authority

None of this is a record you keep in a file so much as a status you hold. An investigator confirms it before opening a single folder, so confirm it first.

• You have a USDOT number and it is active.
• If you carry for hire across state lines, you have operating authority (an MC number) and it is active, not just applied for.
• Your MCS-150 has been updated in the last 24 months, on the month your USDOT number's last digit assigns you, under §390.19T(b)(2). An update is due even if nothing changed.
• A process agent designation (BOC-3) is on file with FMCSA, if you hold authority.
• Proof of financial responsibility is at your principal place of business, under §387.7(d): the MCS-90 endorsement on the policy, or the surety bond, or the self-insurance authorisation.
• Your Unified Carrier Registration fee is paid for the current calendar year.
• If you run a qualified vehicle in more than one state, your IRP registration and IFTA licence are current. These are state programs, not FMCSA ones, but a roadside officer checks them in the same stop.

Factor 1: General (Parts 387 and 390)

The general factor is insurance, marking and the accident register. Small carriers rarely fail it outright. They fail it by having the policy but not the endorsement, or the truck lettered with a trade name that does not match the registration.

• Liability coverage is in effect at or above the minimum in §387.9 for what you haul, and it has not lapsed for a day since you began operating. §387.7(a) is a before-you-operate rule, not a catch-up one.
• Every self-propelled unit shows your legal name or a single trade name as listed on your registration, and your USDOT number, on both sides, legible from 50 feet in daylight, under §390.21(b) and §390.21(c).
• An accident register exists, even if it is empty, in the form §390.15(b) describes. Factor 6 below says what goes in it.
• Somebody in the business can produce records "within such time as the request or investigation may specify", the phrase in §390.15(a). If the only person who knows where the files are is on the road, that is a gap.

Factor 2: Driver (Parts 382, 383 and 391)

This is where most findings come from, because every line is per driver and every driver has dates. Work through it once per driver, including yourself if you drive. An owner-operator with authority is both the carrier and the driver and the file on the owner is the one most often missing.

Qualification file

• A driver qualification file exists for each driver you use, under §391.51(a). The full contents are in the driver qualification file guide; the lines below are the ones that carry a date.
• The employment application is in the file and was completed before the driver drove, under §391.51(b)(1).
• The driving record from each state that licensed the driver was requested at hire, under §391.51(b)(2), and the copy received is in the file.
• The previous-employer inquiries for the last three years went out, and either the responses or a record of the good-faith attempt to get them is on file, under §391.23.
• A road test certificate, or the licence or certificate accepted instead of it, is in the file, under §391.51(b)(3).
• An annual driving record inquiry was made in the last 12 months, under §391.25(a), and the record received is in the file.
• Someone reviewed that record in the last 12 months and a signed, dated note of the review is in the file, under §391.25(c)(2). A clean record still gets reviewed.
• The driver is at least 21, can read and speak English well enough for the job, and holds a licence from one state only, under §391.11(b).

Medical certification

• Each driver is currently medically certified, under §391.11(b)(4), and the expiry date of that certification is written down somewhere you will see it before it arrives.
• For a CDL holder, the driving record on file shows the medical certification status, under §391.51(b)(6). For a non-CDL driver, a copy of the medical examiner's certificate is in the file.
• A note confirming the examiner was on the National Registry at the time of the exam is in the file, under §391.51(b)(8).
• Any driver with a skill performance evaluation certificate or a medical exemption has the document in the file, under §391.51(b)(7), and it has not expired.

Licence

• Every driver of a vehicle that needs a CDL holds one of the right class, with the right endorsements, issued by their state of domicile, under §383.23(a)(2).
• No driver is being used while disqualified. §383.37(b) puts that on the carrier, not only the driver.

Drug and alcohol testing

• Every CDL driver, including the owner, is in a testing program, either your own or a consortium's. A one-driver carrier is in a consortium's random pool.
• A verified negative pre-employment controlled substances result was received before each driver first performed a safety-sensitive function, under §382.301(a).
• Random testing ran this year at or above the rates in §382.305(b), spread across the calendar year rather than done in one batch.
• Each driver was given your written policy and educational materials, and a signed receipt for them is on file, under §382.601.
• Testing records are kept in a separate location with controlled access, under §382.401(a), not in the qualification file.

Clearinghouse

• A full pre-employment Clearinghouse query was run for each driver before they first drove for you, under §382.701(a).
• Each driver has had a Clearinghouse query in the last 12 months, under §382.701(b). A limited query is enough, unless it comes back showing information exists, in which case a full query with consent is due within 24 hours. The annual query guide covers how the year is counted.
• The written consent for limited queries is on file for each driver, and the record of every query and its result is kept for three years, under §382.701(e).

Factor 3: Operational (Parts 392 and 395)

Hours of service. The investigator asks for a sample of days for a sample of drivers, and then asks for the documents that back them up.

• Each driver's record of duty status is kept by an ELD, under §395.8(a)(1), or you have written down which exception you are relying on and can show that it applies. The short-haul exception in §395.1(e) is the common one, and it has conditions.
• Records of duty status and the supporting documents are kept for six months from receipt, under §395.8(k)(1).
• Drivers hand in their supporting documents within 13 days, under §395.11(b), and you keep up to eight per driver per day, under §395.11(d)(1). Fuel receipts, bills of lading, dispatch records, toll receipts.
• Somebody actually looks at the logs for hours violations and unassigned driving time, and there is a record of that review. The ELD produces the data; it does not review it.
• Each driver has the last seven days of records available in the cab, under §395.8(k)(2), and the ELD instruction sheet and blank paper logs the device rules call for.

Factor 4: Vehicle (Parts 393 and 396)

This factor is per unit, and trailers are units. A fleet of four tractors and six trailers has ten inspection clocks, not four. That single fact accounts for a large share of vehicle-factor findings at small carriers.

Periodic inspection

• Every unit you operate, tractors and trailers alike, has passed an inspection covering every item in Appendix A to Part 396 at least once in the preceding 12 months, under §396.17(c). This is a lookback from today, not an anniversary. The day after the twelve months run out, the unit may not be used. There is no grace period.
• The documentation for that inspection, a copy of the report or a decal, is on the unit, as §396.17(c) requires. A record in an office or a system is not on the unit.
• The inspection report itself, with the six items in §396.21(a), is kept where the vehicle is housed or maintained for 14 months, under §396.21(b)(1).
• Whoever did the inspection meets §396.19(a), and you hold evidence of that, under §396.19(b), for as long as they inspect for you and a year after. A state inspection program is the one case where you do not need to hold this.
• Any inspection you counted on that a unit failed has been treated as no inspection. A failed inspection does not restart the clock.

Daily inspection reports

• Drivers know that a written report is due at the end of each day's work on each vehicle when a defect or deficiency was found or reported, under §396.11(a)(1), and that no report is required when nothing was found, under §396.11(a)(2)(i). If you ask for a report every day regardless, that is your company policy, which is fine, but the driver should know which it is.
• Every reported defect was repaired, or certified as not needing repair, before the vehicle went out again, under §396.11(a)(3), and the certification is on the report.
• The next driver reviewed the last report and signed it to acknowledge the repair, under §396.13(c).
• Reports are kept for three months from the date prepared, under §396.11(a)(4). The DVIR guide has the eleven items and the rules for combinations.
• If you operate exactly one commercial motor vehicle, you know that §396.11(a)(5) exempts you from this section, and that the pre-trip inspection in §392.7(a) still applies.

Maintenance records

• Every vehicle you have controlled for 30 consecutive days has a maintenance record, under §396.3(b), with the four things it lists: identification, a way to show what maintenance is due and when, a record of what was done and when, and for buses the emergency exit tests.
• The "due date" part of that record is real. A stack of repair invoices with no schedule fails §396.3(b)(2) even when the truck is immaculate.
• Records are kept where the vehicle is housed or maintained for one year, and for six months after the vehicle leaves your control, under §396.3(c). Sold trucks still have a clock.
• Any roadside inspection report was signed off within 15 days, returned to the state if asked, and a copy kept for 12 months, under §396.9(d)(3).

Factor 5: Hazardous materials (Part 397 and 49 CFR 171 to 180)

Only if you haul placarded quantities. If you do, this checklist does not cover you; the hazardous materials factor has its own registration, training, shipping paper and routing rules, and you need a list written for them. If you do not, one line says so and you move on.

Factor 6: Accident (§390.15)

• The accident register is kept for three years after the date of each accident, under §390.15(b).
• Each entry has the date, the city or town and state, the driver's name, the number of injuries, the number of fatalities, and whether hazardous materials other than fuel from the vehicle's own tank were released.
• Copies of every accident report a state, another government body or your insurer required are filed with the register.
• You have decided, in writing, what counts as an accident under the definition in §390.5: a death, an injury needing immediate treatment away from the scene, or a vehicle towed away disabled. Not every fender bender goes in, and every one that qualifies does.

The yearly cycle

Everything above with a date on it comes round again. Put these on one calendar and most of the list looks after itself.

Two of these are not really annual. The periodic inspection is a rolling twelve-month lookback per unit, so inspecting early does not bank the unused months, it just moves the anchor. And the medical certification runs on whatever date the examiner wrote, which can be a year or three months. Both are covered in the retention schedule.

If you are a new entrant

A carrier with a new USDOT number is in the new entrant program for 18 months, under §385.307. During that period your roadside performance is watched and a safety audit is scheduled once you have been running long enough to have records to look at, which the section says is generally at least three months. The audit is not a compliance review. It is a check that the basic controls exist, and it can be done on site or remotely by sending documents in.

It can be failed. §385.321(b) lists the violations that fail it automatically, and every one of them is on this checklist: no testing program, using a driver who tested positive or refused, no random testing, an unlicensed or disqualified driver, no insurance, a physically unqualified driver, no records of duty status, operating a vehicle placed out of service, not fixing a reported defect, and using a vehicle with no periodic inspection. Work through this page before the auditor calls and the audit is a formality. The audit guide explains what happens when it is not.

What this checklist does not cover

• State rules. Intrastate carriers follow their state's adoption of these parts, which may differ in thresholds, ages and exemptions.
• Passenger carriers. Buses and vans for hire have their own insurance minimums, their own emergency exit tests, and Part 374.
• Hazardous materials, as above.
• Oversize and overweight, which is permit law, state by state.
• Tax and labour records. Payroll, IFTA fuel records and workers' compensation have their own retention periods, usually longer than anything here.
• Leased owner-operators. If you lease drivers with their trucks, Part 376 governs the lease itself. The driver and vehicle records above are still yours to keep.

Do you need software for this?

Not for the list. With three trucks and two drivers, this page printed and pinned to the wall, a folder per driver, a folder per unit and a calendar with the dates from the table is a compliant system. Plenty of carriers run that way for years and pass reviews. What breaks it is not the paperwork, it is the counting: ten inspection clocks on rolling twelve-month lookbacks, six drivers each with an annual inquiry, a review, a query and a medical date, and a sold trailer whose maintenance file still has six months to run. Ledger Road keeps that count and says which date is next. If you can keep it on a wall, keep it on a wall. The spreadsheet or software guide is about where that stops working.