Compliance support

Why compliance gets away from small carriers

Nobody loses their authority because they did not know the rules. They lose it because the file drifted — an MVR that was never pulled for the annual review, a medical certificate that expired eight months ago, a driver qualification file missing the employment verification nobody chased.

None of it is difficult. All of it is relentless. It is a calendar problem dressed up as a regulatory one, and a calendar is exactly the thing that falls apart when the owner is also the driver.

We keep the file current continuously, rather than rebuilding it in a panic when an audit letter arrives.

What is included

• Driver qualification files — built and maintained to what the FMCSRs require: application, MVR and annual review, road test or equivalent, medical examiner's certificate, and previous-employer safety performance history.
• Expiry tracking — medical cards, CDL renewals, annual MVR reviews and annual driver certifications tracked before they lapse, not after.
• Hours-of-service review — log review against ELD records, flagging the patterns that become violations at a roadside inspection.
• CSA monitoring — your BASIC percentiles watched, so a rising score is caught while you can still act on it.
• New entrant audit preparation — the safety audit a new carrier faces in its first year, prepared for rather than improvised through.
• Inspection and violation follow-up — roadside inspection reports filed to the record, and DataQs challenges raised where a violation is genuinely wrong.

The new entrant safety audit

A new carrier is subject to a safety audit early in its operating life. It is not a roadside inspection and it is not a full compliance review — it is an examination of whether you have actually built the systems the regulations assume you have.

The audit looks for the things that are easy not to have: a drug and alcohol testing programme genuinely in place, driver qualification files that are complete, hours-of-service records that exist and are accurate, and evidence that you are inspecting and maintaining your equipment.

Carriers fail it on paperwork, not on driving. That is the good news, because paperwork is the part that can be ready before anyone asks.

You can take this without dispatch

Compliance support, IFTA and audit filing, MVR monitoring, the drug and alcohol programme and factoring setup are all available on their own. Plenty of carriers dispatch themselves perfectly well and simply want the file kept straight by somebody whose job it is.