What Should DOT-Compliant Applications Include? A Simple Guide for Carriers
Are you using the same employment application for everyone who walks through your door—from front desk staff to CDL drivers? For DOT-regulated drivers, federal regulations require specific safety and background information that standard job applications don’t collect. That information has to be captured during the application process to become part of the Driver Qualification File—the […]
How to Maintain a Compliant DOT Driver Qualification File: A Step-by-Step Checklist
A driver qualification file can be 100% compliant the day you hire a driver—and completely out of compliance a year later if you don’t maintain it. That’s where many carriers run into preventable violations. The problem usually isn’t how the file was built, but what happens after the driver hits the road: updates slip, deadlines […]
Why Lawsuit Abuse Just Became a Top Concern for Fleets
The latest Critical Issues in the Trucking Industry report from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) confirmed what many carriers already feel: the legal climate is now one of the biggest risks motor carriers have to manage. For the third year in a row, the economy ranked as the trucking industry’s No. 1 concern, but […]
Last Call for 2025: Close the Compliance Gaps That Raise Premiums
A clear, year-end recap of 2025 FMCSA shifts across scoring, drivers, tech, and identifiers, with a 30 to 60 day action plan to cut risk, protect scores, and keep insurance costs in check. Why this matters now 2025 brought real movement. FMCSA advanced its Safety Measurement System refresh through a live CSA Prioritization Preview so […]
How Fleets Should Respond to the Non-Domiciled CDL Legal Battle
A federal appeals court delivered significant news for the trucking industry this week, temporarily halting the Department of Transportation’s controversial emergency restrictions on non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses. The administrative stay, issued Monday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, puts the September 29, 2025, emergency order on hold while legal […]
How to Prepare for Your New Entrant Safety Audit
Getting your DOT number feels like the start of something big. You’ve finally got the green light to run your own operation, and the excitement is real. But once that first wave settles, another feeling usually kicks in—everything tied to safety and compliance now rests on your shoulders. It’s a jarring shift for a lot […]
How to Create a Compliant DOT Driver Qualification File: A Step-by-Step Checklist
If you’ve ever scrambled to pull together driver files right before an audit, you know the stress. Missing documents, expired certificates, and incomplete applications may seem like small gaps, but they can cost thousands in fines and put your authority at risk. And while there are a number of documents to create and collect, building a compliant driver qualification […]
What Carriers Need to Know About FMCSA Clearinghouse Violations in 2025
The FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse will mark its sixth anniversary this January, yet compliance problems remain as widespread as ever. Despite years of warnings and training, Clearinghouse violations have ranked among the most common FMCSA audit findings for the past five years. In a September webinar hosted by U.S. Compliance Services, compliance experts Alex Elias and Steve Harz broke […]
19% of FMCSA Audit Violations Are Preventable with MVR Monitoring
How closely are you paying attention to driver safety? The FMCSA has strict compliance requirements designed to protect the nation’s roadways, but those rules alone don’t guarantee that your drivers are always operating safely and compliantly. Case in point: nearly one in five audit violations is entirely preventable with an MVR Monitoring program. While these […]
1 in 5 Roadside Inspections Put Motor Carriers Out of Service in 2025
What’s the biggest compliance challenge facing carriers in 2026? If fiscal year 2025 data is any indication, it’s avoiding the roadside inspection that puts your driver out of service. Almost 1 in 5 inspections (19.98%) ended with an OOS order this past year—and the problem is getting worse. With fiscal year data through September 26, […]