DOT Compliance Services & Software for FleetsThe compliance program that runs itself.
Because we run it.

This is the obligation map, with the part that governs it and what we operate on your behalf.

The software is where you see the program, not the program itself. That distinction matters, because most DOT compliance software sells you a place to store documents and leaves the actual work — the query, the collection, the MRO review, the filing — to you.

• One driver record per driver: DQ file contents, test history, Clearinghouse query results, MVR and monitoring alerts, medical certificate expiration
• A compliance calendar driven by the federal safety regulations timing — annual reviews, limited queries, medical certs, annual inspections, MCS-150 and UCR windows
• Random selection notices with driver name, test type and window, so your DER is not tracking a pool in a spreadsheet
• Document vault with the retention periods built in, so nothing gets purged before the federal safety regulations or the federal safety regulations allows
• An audit export that produces the file set an investigator asks for, in the order they ask for it
• Role-based access for owners, safety managers, dispatchers and the DER

If you already run a TMS or an ELD platform, we sit alongside it. We are not asking you to move your dispatch or your logs.

Almost every violation we see in an audit is a timing failure, not a knowledge failure. The record existed; it was late, expired, or never renewed.

DOT compliance is the set of driver qualification, testing, recordkeeping, inspection and filing duties a motor carrier owes under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. The FMCSR sit at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, and the drug and alcohol testing procedures they point to sit at the federal safety regulations. An FMCSR is one individual rule inside that body — when people search "DOT regulations," "DOT regs" or "DOT rules and regulations," this is what they mean.

These duties attach the day you begin operating a commercial motor vehicle as defined at the federal safety regulations. They do not begin when you are audited. Being DOT compliant means every record below exists, is current, and can be produced on demand.

FMCSA regulates you if you operate a vehicle in interstate commerce that meets the commercial motor vehicle definition at the federal safety regulations: a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more, or a vehicle designed to carry 9 to 15 passengers for compensation, or 16 or more passengers, or one carrying hazardous materials in a placardable quantity. A CDL is not the trigger. Weight, passengers and hazmat are.

Non-CDL drivers are the group most often missed. A driver in a 12,000-pound box truck crossing a state line is a regulated driver: qualified under the federal safety regulations, medically certified under the federal safety regulations–the federal medical rule, subject to hours of service under the federal rules, and carried in your DQ file system.

• DOT requirements for non-CDL drivers: DQ file, MVR at hire and annually, medical examiner's certificate, road test or equivalent, HOS records
• the federal rules drug and alcohol testing applies only to drivers operating a CMV that requires a CDL — a non-CDL DOT driver is generally outside the federal rules but fully inside the federal rules, 395 and 396
• Many fleets still test non-CDL drivers under company authority; that is a non-DOT test and must be kept separate from the DOT program

There is no federal credential called a DOT certification for a carrier. When someone asks how to get DOT certified, they mean one of three different things, and the answer changes depending on which.

• Getting a USDOT number. You register with FMCSA and receive a DOT number. This identifies the carrier; it is not a safety approval. For-hire interstate carriers also need operating authority (an MC number), which FMCSA grants after a 10-day protest window from publication.
• The driver's medical certificate. A driver "gets DOT certified" by passing an exam with a certified medical examiner under the federal safety regulations. That is driver-side medical certification, not carrier compliance.
• Passing the new entrant safety audit. New carriers are audited under the applicable the federal safety regulations Subpart D and, on passing, have their new entrant designation removed. This is the closest thing to being "certified" and it is the one most owners are actually worried about.

Registration also carries recurring filings that carriers routinely let lapse:

• The biennial MCS-150 update under the federal safety regulations — due on a schedule keyed to your USDOT number, whether or not anything about your operation changed
• A BOC-3 process agent designation covering every state you operate in, under the federal safety regulations
• Annual UCR registration under the federal safety regulations — see our UCR filing guide for the bracket structure. The UCR Board sets the bracket each year from the power units reported on your MCS-150; trailers are excluded
• Proof of financial responsibility on file under the federal safety regulations

Two different things get called a DOT inspection, and confusing them loses carriers points in the Vehicle Maintenance BASIC.

Roadside inspections

Roadside DOT inspections are conducted to standards set by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, not by a federal safety regulations part, and are graded in levels. Level I is the full driver-and-vehicle inspection including the under-vehicle portion. Level II is walk-around driver and vehicle. Level III is driver credentials only. Level V is a vehicle-only inspection performed without the driver present. The out-of-service criteria applied are CVSA's, and CVSA reissues them each year, so the edition in force on the date of the inspection is the one that governs.

Any vehicle placed out of service must be repaired before it returns to service, and the signed inspection report must be returned to the issuing agency under the federal safety regulations. Missing that return is a paperwork violation that appears on your record months later.

The annual inspection

Separately, every commercial motor vehicle you operate must pass a periodic inspection at least once every 12 months under the federal safety regulations, performed by a qualified inspector meeting the federal safety regulations. The DOT inspection form people search for is the report generated by that inspection — the minimum inspection standards are at the applicable the federal safety regulations Appendix A. A passing roadside Level I inspection can substitute for the annual inspection if the report documents it.

• Keep the annual inspection report, or a copy, where the vehicle is housed or maintained
• Driver vehicle inspection reports under the federal safety regulations are a separate daily obligation, not the annual inspection
• Every vehicle needs a maintenance file under the federal safety regulations for as long as you control it, plus 6 months after

There are two encounters. A new entrant safety audit under the applicable the federal safety regulations Subpart D happens in your first period of operation and is largely a records exercise. A compliance review is deeper, is usually triggered by your CSA scores, a crash, or a complaint, and produces a safety rating of satisfactory, conditional or unsatisfactory under the federal safety regulations.

Investigators score against acute and critical violations listed in the applicable the federal safety regulations Appendix B. Acute violations are so severe that a single instance requires immediate corrective action — using a driver who tested positive, or failing to implement a drug and alcohol testing program at all. Critical violations reflect breakdown in management controls and are measured as a pattern.

Civil penalties for FMCSR violations are set out in the applicable the federal safety regulations Appendix B and are adjusted for inflation every year, so the amount that applies is the one in force on the date of the violation. Penalties are typically assessed per violation, and recordkeeping violations can be assessed per day or per driver. An unsatisfactory rating can lead to an order prohibiting operation. The practical exposure for most fleets is not one large fine — it is a conditional rating that your insurer and your shippers both see.

People use "DOT recordable" and "DOT reportable" interchangeably. Federally, there is one definition that matters: the definition of accident at the federal safety regulations. If a crash meets it, it goes on your accident register and it counts against you in the Crash Indicator BASIC.

What makes an accident DOT reportable in the testing sense is a different test, at the federal safety regulations. Post-accident testing is required when there is a fatality, or when the driver receives a citation and the crash caused an injury treated away from the scene or disabling damage requiring a tow. Alcohol testing must occur within 8 hours, controlled substance testing within 32 hours, and you must document why any test was not performed.

State crash reporting is separate again, with its own thresholds and its own form. A crash can be state-reportable and not DOT recordable, or the reverse. We track both against your register.

There is no federal fleet safety certification. No agency issues a certificate that makes a fleet "fleet safety certified." What exists is a satisfactory safety rating under the federal safety regulations, clean CSA percentiles in FMCSA's Safety Measurement System, and third-party or insurer-run programs that issue their own credentials. If a vendor sells you a fleet safety certification, ask who issues it and what it is recognized by.

A fleet safety program is the internal system that produces those outcomes. The parts of it that are federally required, and therefore audited, are specific:

• A written drug and alcohol policy distributed to every covered driver, with signed receipt, under the federal safety regulations
• A designated employer representative under the federal safety regulations who can be reached and can act on a positive result
• Reasonable suspicion training for every supervisor — at least 60 minutes on controlled substances and 60 minutes on alcohol, under the federal safety regulations
• Entry-level driver training from a registered provider for new CDL applicants and upgrades, under the applicable the federal safety regulations Subpart F
• Instruction that drivers are informed of and comply with the FMCSR, under the federal safety regulations(1)
• Hazmat employee training, including recurrent training, under the federal safety regulations if applicable

DOT compliance training, in practice, means those required trainings plus the internal training that keeps them from being findings: how your DER handles a refusal, how dispatch handles an out-of-service order, how a hiring manager runs a full Clearinghouse query. We deliver these to your team, not as generic courseware, but against your own program documents.