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Who can be audited?
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The U.S. Department of Transportation regularly audits  motor carriers to ensure they comply with  regulations.  Attention to detail and  thorough record  keeping are the  keys  to making sure that your business passes each and every safety audit by the DOT.  Inspectors  are authorized to review any aspect of DOT regulations during their  visit as well as  conduct employee  interviews.  Violations  may  be acute, requiring immediate corrective action,  or critical,  indicative  of a management  or operational breakdown.  The best way to prepare  for  a DOT  audit is  to  follow   regulations,   maintain  proper  documentation and understand what the audit process requires.

To pass the DOT Safety Audit or Compliance Review the company has to be prepared in all required aspects.

Types of DOT Audits:

1.Compliance  Review - An on-site examination to determine  a  motor carrier’s  safety fitness. Covers the full spectrum of compliance areas.

2.Security Review-The Security Review includes the security  plan,  training  and  other  security - related measures. Often goes hand-in-hand with a Hazardous Materials Review if the company transports hazardous materials.

3.Hazardous  Materials  Review   -   A very thorough review  of  requirements  associated with  transporting hazardous materials, such as, policies, training,shipping papers,  placards,  markings and labeling of containers.
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4.New Entrant -Safety Audits usually occur within the first three to six months  after  a new  entrant  begins operating under its USDOT number.
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​Compliance Review vs New Entrant Safety Audit.

“Compliance Review means an on-site examination of motor carrier operations, such as drivers’ hours of service, maintenance and inspection, driver qualification, commercial driver’s license requirements, financial responsibility, accidents, hazardous materials, and other safety and transportation records to determine whether a motor carrier meets the safety fitness standard. A compliance review may be conducted in response to a request to change a safety rating, to investigate potential violations of safety regulations by motor carriers, or to investigate complaints or other evidence of safety violations. The compliance review may result in the initiation of an enforcement action.”

A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) compliance review involves the examination of "factors" to determine your compliance with the regulations. The key is documentation. You may do all the required steps to comply with the regulations, but if it is not documented, it will appear that you are not. The six factors are:

  • Factor 1 — General
  • Factor 2 — Driver
  • Factor 3 — Operational
  • Factor 4 — Vehicle
  • Factor 5 — Hazardous materials
  • Factor 6 — Accidents

​If the auditor discovers violations during the compliance review, he/she will decide (based on regulatory guidance) if the violations are acute, critical, or "other."

  • Acute violations are violations severe enough that the presence of a single violation requires immediate corrective action by the auditor and the carrier.
  • Critical violations are proof of a pattern of poor safety management controls. Critical violations will not affect the compliance review rating until they reach a level of ten percent non-compliance.
  • Other violations are violations that are found that are neither acute nor critical. They will have no affect on the compliance review rating. However, you can be fined for all violations found during the compliance review.

Factor 1

Factor 1 will review your compliance with the financial responsibility, accident register, and false documents and statements regulations. The auditor will first need to see your proof of insurance in the form of either a MCS-90 (endorsement for motor carrier policies of insurance for public liability), MCS-82 (motor carrier surety bond for public liability), or proof of a self-insurance decision from the FMCSA.

The auditor will then ask to see your accident register. The accident register must contain information on all accidents involving death, injury, or vehicles being towed from the scene due to disabling damage. Your register must contain all FMCSA accidents you (or any of your trucks) were involved in during the previous three years. Fault or preventability has no bearing on the accident register. It must contain all accidents meeting the FMCSA definition of an accident.

The auditor will have a copy of your “profile,” which will contain (among other things) all FMCSA defined accidents you have been involved in during the previous 30 months.

During the entire compliance review the auditor will be verifying all statements and documents you provide. This is due to the regulatory requirement that you be truthful with all statements and documents.

The acute violations in Factor 1 are not meeting the minimum insurance levels and providing false documents or statements to the auditor. The critical violations in Factor 1 are failure to have proof of insurance available at the primary place of business and failing to maintain copies of all accident reports as required.

Factor 2

Factor 2 reviews your compliance with the driver regulations. Owner operators are required to fulfill the requirements of both owner, and driver, when those terms are used anywhere in the regulations.

The auditor will review your drug and alcohol program. This portion of the review will include checking for a written policy (even if you are the only employee), a pre-hire drug testing program, not allowing a driver to drive until the carrier has verified negative results for pre-hire tests, post accident drug and alcohol testing, a reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing program, a supervisory training program, and a random drug and alcohol testing program. In the case of owner operators with only one truck and driver, the driver will need to be placed into a “consortium.” A consortium is a “random pool” made up of drivers from companies who are members of the consortium.

The auditor will also want to see that the carrier (you) immediately removed from safety sensitive functions any driver that failed a test, refused a test, or participated in prohibited activity.

As part of the review of Factor 2 material the auditor will also review your driver qualifications. Remember, the auditor will be verifying that the “carrier” and the “drivers” are compliant with the regulations, even if the carrier and the driver are the same person.

The auditor will be checking to see that each driver has completed the entry-level driver training (if required), taken a road test (or has the equivalent on file), one driver’s license issued by their home state with the correct classes and endorsements, had their driving record checked when hired and a minimum of once a year thereafter, and reported all traffic convictions, suspensions, revocations, or disqualifications.

The auditor will also check that the carrier did not use drivers with suspended licenses, did not use drivers that have not passed (or cannot pass) a FMCSA physical, is using an employment application that “asks the right questions,” is doing background and safety performance history investigations on new drivers, and is maintaining a qualification file that documents all the activities listed above.

Critical violations in Factor 2 include using a driver before receiving negative pre-employment drug test results, failure to conduct post accident drug and alcohol testing or to meet the required percentages, using a driver who has engaged in prohibited drug and alcohol activities, not adhering to follow-up testing schedule for a driver in a return-to-work program, allowing a driver to operate a commercial vehicle without the correct license, using a driver not medically examined and certified, failure to maintain a driver qualification file on drivers, and failure to maintain proof of qualification in driver qualification file.

Acute violations in Factor 2 are most drug and alcohol violations, using a driver who does not have a valid or proper CDL due to a suspension, revocation, or disqualification, using a driver that has multiple CDLs, and using a driver who is physically or otherwise disqualified.

Factor 3

During the review of Factor 3, the auditor will examine your compliance with the rules of safe operation and the hours-of-service regulations. The auditor will be looking for incidents of operating unsafe equipment, driving when ill, fatigued, or under the influence, operating illegally to comply with scheduling, driving when cargo is not secured and properly distributed, and drivers not submitting required logs, operating over the hour-of-service limitations, or submitting false logs.

During this portion of the review you will need to provide the auditor with “supporting documents” to compare to the drivers’ logs to locate false logs. Supporting documents are any documents kept in the course of business that can prove or disprove the accuracy of drivers’ logs. When this factor is scored, violations involving hours of service will “count double.” Acute violations in Factor 3 are allowing a driver to operate while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The critical violations are violations of any of the other regulations covered in this factor.

Factor 4

Factor 4 reviews the maintenance of vehicle or vehicles. You must have a program that “systematically” inspects, maintains, and repairs all commercial vehicles under your control. Repairing out-of-service vehicles before operation, operating only vehicles that have had their periodic (annual) inspection, completion of driver vehicle inspection reports, and repairs of driver-reported defects are all audit points in Factor 4. A maintenance file for each vehicle is what the auditor will want to see to prove compliance with these regulations.

Also taken into consideration in Factor 4 is the total number of roadside inspections and inspections that recorded a vehicle out-of-service violation. If the vehicles were placed out of service in 34 percent or more of the inspections, the score in Factor 4 will be affected. Acute violations in Factor 4 are allowing out-of-service or unsafe vehicles to be operated. Recordkeeping violations and failure to comply with the annual inspection requirements make up the critical violations in Factor 4.

Factor 5

Factor 5 only applies to hazardous material carriers. Because of its complexity, this factor will only be covered briefly. If you handle or transport hazardous materials you will want to investigate this area further. The auditor will check that you have a security plan, you are following it, and employees have been trained on it, you do not violate the explosive or radioactive transportation rules, any incident involving hazardous materials is reported immediately, written reports are filed in a timely fashion for any incident, all hazardous materials employees are trained, and retrained every three years, you do not haul improperly marked or placarded shipments of hazardous materials, you do not accept damaged or leaking containers of hazardous materials, and cargo tank inspections and recordkeeping are current.

Factor 6

The review of Factor 6 simply checks your accident performance. The auditor will take the number of FMCSA defined accidents you were involved in during the previous 12 months and determine your accident rate per million miles. This is only done if the carrier has had two or more accidents in the previous 12 months.

Scoring the factors

To score Factors 1 to 5, every time the auditor finds an acute violation, he/she will score one point in that factor. If the auditor finds a critical violation with over 10 percent noncompliance, he/she will score one point in that factor. If the score is zero points in a factor your score for that factor is “satisfactory.” One point is “conditional,” and two or more points in a factor is considered “unsatisfactory.” Factor 6 (accidents) is simply scored as “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” based on the accidents per million miles. If the accident rate is below 1.5 accidents per million miles, the factor is scored as “satisfactory.”

Scoring the review

One unsatisfactory factor, combined with two or more conditional factors, results in a review score of unsatisfactory. Two unsatisfactory factors will also result in an unsatisfactory score for the review. If the carrier is rated as “unsatisfactory” by the auditor, the carrier has 60 days to put forth a “good faith effort to comply” and get FMCSA approval to continuing operating.

New Entrants 

​“Safety Audit means an examination of a motor carrier’s operations to provide educational and technical assistance on safety and the operational requirements of the FMCSRs and applicable HMRs and to gather critical safety data needed to make an assessment of the carrier’s safety performance and basic safety management controls. Safety audits do not result in safety ratings.”

If the review is being done as a “new entrant safety audit,” the auditing and the scoring are slightly different. The audit will include the same six factors, but will not be as in depth as a compliance review. Each acute violation is assigned a value of 1.5, and each violation of a critical regulation will lead to the assignment of one point. Any factor that has 3 or more points assigned to it, the carrier will be viewed as “not having adequate safety controls” in that factor. If three factors are found to be over three points, the carrier will need to provide corrective action immediately or risk the revocation of their registration.

As stated above Compliance review can result in downgrading of your Safety rating, but a safety audit does not affect your rating.  Below are the safety ratings, again from the definition of Regulation 385.3 of the FMCSR that your company may incur.

DOT Safety Ratings:
  • Satisfactory safety rating means that a motor carrier has in place and functioning adequate safety management controls to meet the safety fitness standard prescribed in § 385.5. Safety management controls are adequate if they are appropriate for the size and type of operation of the particular motor carrier.
  • Conditional safety rating means a motor carrier does not have adequate safety management controls in place to ensure compliance with the safety fitness standard that could result in occurrences listed in § 385.5 (a) through (k).
  • Unsatisfactory safety rating means a motor carrier does not have adequate safety management controls in place to ensure compliance with the safety fitness standard which has resulted in occurrences listed in § 385.5 (a) through (k).
  • Unrated carrier means that a safety rating has not been assigned to the motor carrier by the FMCSA.” Unrated is closer to Satisfactory that to Conditional, per the Illinois FMCSA,

If your company is downgraded to Conditional you may see several things happen, such as:
  • Losing some of your long time customers, many brokers will not book freight when companies have Conditional ratings. Even long time, dedicated clients may be forced to get new carriers for their freight
  • Your insurance premiums can increase or you may not be able to find insurance. When renewing your certificates you may see increases of 20 to 30% which can be thousands of dollars.
  • Your trucks and vehicles are more likely be inspected in roadside inspection and especially at scales due to the Inspection Selection System (ISS) that actually recommends that you be inspected at each stop due to existing safety concerns.

If you are deemed Unsatisfactory due to a compliance review you will have 30 to 45 days to provide:
  • An adequate corrective action plan to be able to continue in business and
  • It must be very specific,
  • Change must be evidenced through policies and processes you are putting in place

Once you submit the Corrective Action Plan is submitted they make a decision about letting you continue in business or ordering you to cease and desist which means you are no longer authorized to operate in interstate commerce.
If they accept your corrective action plan it will typically be a Conditional or, if lucky, an unrated designation.  Unrated is better than Conditional. Unrated means you have no rating, while conditional implies that although you can still continue to operate your business has unresolved safety issues.  Either way you will need to have a compliance review to get an upgraded to Satisfactory.
Once you are allowed to continue operating your business will be carefully monitored by roadside inspections and the FMCSA will closely monitor activity through the CSA program.  You will be under scrutiny until you request and receive a safety rating upgrade.

At best, obtaining an upgrade is a slow process. 
It is very specific and must be done in the manner the FMCSA demands.  Once submitted it is supposed to take from 60 to 90 days to get a determination, however it is taking sometimes up to a year depending on how many officers are available and how many new Unsatisfactory ratings are already in the works.  New Unsatisfactory carriers are given preference due to the 30 to 45 day time constraint.  Upgrades are neither easy nor fast.  It is best to protect your company before you get caught in that trap.

​Critical vs. Acute: Understanding the Two Types of Carrier Violations
During Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) safety reviews, auditors are looking for violations of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs). All violations are classified as either Acute or Critical. Acute violations, as defined by FMCSA, are so severe that they require immediate corrective action. Failing to implement an alcohol and/or controlled substances testing program is an example of an Acute violation. Meanwhile, FMCSA views a Critical violation as a sign of poor safety control management. Failing to require a driver to make a record of duty status is an example of a Critical violation.
The tables below, which list the top 10 Critical and Acute violations for Fiscal Year 2018, provide a snapshot of the most commonly cited carrier violations.