Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

At random intervals a fleet may be chosen for a FMCSA Compliance Review. Audits can be random or a fleet can be audited because  they come under scrutiny for some reason usually relating to the fleets safety rating.  We had one awhile back and the inspector was professional, but friendly and we learned a lot about how things are done.

The inspector gave us one week notice that they were coming in for the audit. We had some time to straighten things up a bit, but if your ducks aren’t already in a decent row, one week isn’t going to be enough time to fix the major stuff. We’re a small fleet of about 12 trucks, all owner operators, a couple of owners have drivers, but mostly owner operators. All of the drivers have been driving over 10 years, several over 20 years.

Two inspectors flew into town, we got one and the other went to another small fleet. A DOT/FMCSA audit is just like any other audit, someone inspects your paperwork for correctness and verifies your paperwork with the record the government has on file. Your mileage may vary, every audit and every auditor is different, but this is what happened at ours. They ensure your drug program is in compliance, your drivers are driving safely and your equipment is being maintained.

Most of it is as boring as the paperwork. The drug program is outsourced, no problems. The personnel folders were mostly up to date, but when it came to logs… You would think drivers that had been driving for 20 years would know how to fill out a logbook! We audit our logs and we can tell these guys until we are blue in the face, completely stupid stuff. Hey, you know when you get pulled around back of a weigh station, the government has a copy of that inspection and guess what? The inspection has a time and date on it! Log it!

I’ve been auditing the logs for the last four months. I can write a stack of violation letters, but do these guys listen? And even if a carrier writes a violation letter, the carrier is still responsible for the log errors. We didn’t get fined, thank goodness. Fines are figured on the gross income a carriers previous year. Our last year was a lot better than this year. The couple of major errors were stupid, going over 70 hours, which we caught, but what can you do when it’s already happened? Can’t go back and change it! A couple of major things and a bunch of minor stuff on the logs.

The owner tried positive reinforcement, rewards for perfect logs. That didn’t work. Now we have to go the other way. We’re still working on that, but it could be suspension or fines for major errors. We used to have a problem with drivers not sending in their logs in a timely manner. Logs are supposed to be in the office 13 days from the date of the log. If someone is two weeks behind in their logs, they don’t get paid until their logs arrive in the office.  That woke a few people up.

I’m not saying everyone has a problem, we have our professionals that are great and mostly everyone is fine on their logs a few small things here and there, but there are a few that need extra encouragement to do their job. You can’t just sit there drive and be like a tourist, the paperwork is part of the job and just because you’ve been doing something for 20 years, doesn’t mean you’ve been doing it right. It’s agonizing to have a conversation and tell someone that should know better, how to do their job and they have to realize they can’t do it “their” way, it’s not even “our” way, it’s the government that requires this and they’re sitting there arguing about it.  One driver had to be told (not by me) that either do the logs the right way or he couldn’t drive here anymore because he could have cost us a bunch of money, which would have put this small trucking company out of business, just because of a few stubborn idiots.

The sad part is that the owner will pay for a driver’s copy of Drivers Daily Log, but most of these guys either don’t have a laptop or it’s broken or they can’t figure it out. How can you be a serious professional owner operator without a laptop these days? Especially now when laptops and netbooks are getting cheaper all the time. Granted it takes some investment in time to learn something new, but invest a little. It’s not like these guys are doing the same thing on paper, most have no idea how much money it costs to run their truck, they just know they’re not getting enough.

Thankfully it was nothing too major. Besides a few log issues he looked at the maintenance records, even if the truck is owned by someone else, the carrier still has to keep maintenance records. So, send your records into your carrier! Like everything else, most do a great job and a few don’t do such a great job. We signed up with Speedco, so every one of our trucks that goes in for a PM we get a copy without the driver even saying anything, the trailers get inspected while they are there too. Granted, not everyone goes to Speedco every time, but they do if they want the trailer PM paid for, so it works out.

There were a few times when we were having a normal conversation with the inspector, that’s when we learned the most! We heard of a few companies where the owner would be audited, fined heavily, go out of business, reopen under a different name, get audited, fined, go out of business and there’s really nothing they can do about that. Brokers are even worse, since brokers don’t technically have a fleet, FMCSA can’t do anything about them. The inspector said they have limited authority, but it’s basically worthless.

Overall it was a good learning experience. Ever hear a driver say, “The people in the office have no idea what goes on out there?” Well, I do and I may not have to deal with four-wheelers, shippers and construction, now I deal with the government. The Federal government, the state governments, rules and regulations everywhere, I’ll deal with a four-wheeler over a government bureaucrat any day. Maybe some of these drivers should sit in the office and they might realize it’s not exactly a cake-walk either. A little cooperation on both sides would be helpful for everyone.