Long Haul Trucking | How to Handle Your Company’s DOT Audit

Take the day off. If you can’t leave the country, at least leave the state. I’m kind of joking but I’m not. This is the second time DOT has been to the office in about two months. First time, they gave us a week notice, then when they arrived, they only wanted to see household stuff, but we don’t do household stuff. The team stayed about 20 minutes and left.

This time we get another week’s notice and I’m in most everyday, redoing what I did for the last one. The biggest problem for some reason is drivers sending in their logs. More on that in a minute. Inspector flew in from Carson City, (Nevada’s capitol) yesterday afternoon. She came with a team, but they’re at another company, we get a solo inspector.  We get some preliminary questions, fill out some paperwork, last about an hour. She has stuff to do at DMV today, so tomorrow she comes back for the real deal.

I have nothing left to do. It’s all done. What’s there is ready and what’s not, isn’t going to be done by tomorrow anyway. So, I took the day off. Tomorrow, she will ask for random drivers, random equipment and random logs, hopefully she picks the right ones. Plus going through other paperwork, making sure our drug program is being done right and comparing all of that to what paperwork she has. That will be the interesting part, what they already know before they even get there.

You would not believe all the calling and harassing of drivers to get them to send in their logs. Some were missing and had to be redone, but we’ve been telling them this for a month. Some don’t do their DDVIR (vehicle inspection report), that’s probably what we’ll get in the most trouble for. But you wouldn’t believe these guys have been driving for 20 years by the way they are so lazy about their paperwork. One driver just got his physical in and there was a gap from his old one and he was driving. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Just because he didn’t get caught then, doesn’t mean he won’t get caught now.

I’m going to say it and probably get in trouble for it, but it’s the 21st century. Truckers that don’t have a laptop and know how to use it might as well not have a cell phone either. Go back to your horse and buggy. How can you run a business without the right tools today? The best and affordable tool is a laptop. It may take some investment of your time, but it’s worth it. Take the time to learn Drivers Daily Log and stop sending in logs with stupid mistakes or get a calculator.

Part of the problem is there is no reason for them to do anything. The owner and myself came up with new procedures and sent out a letter saying there would be rewards for logs that were done right. That didn’t work, so he is going to go the other way. Other companies have strict requirements about logs and I can see why. If logs don’t get sent in or you have a lot of errors or violations, you get some kind of reprimand. Sometimes, it’s get sent back to HQ for three days of unpaid and non-working, log class. How would you like to be in class for three days and not working and not be home? Wonder how quick they will get their logs in if their pay is tied to it? Don’t send your logs in, don’t get paid. Not even my idea, but it’s the only tool that will work.

That’s stupidity, but you would think drivers that have been driving this long know the routine by now. If you want to be treated like a professional, act like one, otherwise you’re going be treated like children. Not everyone is a problem with their paperwork, we have our professionals that know what to do, but there are others that are not as professional as they should be. This is easy stuff, it’s not rocket science. Get your logs in every two weeks, have a physical once a year, get your truck inspected once a year. You would think we were asking them to actually do hard labor.

I received a lot of questions from the inspector about how I audit logs and spot falsification. I use DDL’s iTruck for auditing, but that’s only good for hours of service. Other stuff is mostly by “feel” (didn’t say that exactly),  I’ve been driving for awhile and I know it takes two days to drive from Dallas to Vegas. Even though DDL can audit for each states speed limits, you have to put in a lot of other information and I don’t have time for that. I do put in the miles driven per day and I have it set at 60mph and if anything flags I look at what state is being driven through. I should be using the confirmations or trip sheets more, but I usually don’t (didn’t tell her that part, must have forgot).

The biggest part is there isn’t that much freight going on where anyone has to falsify their logs. Do a trip and you’re lucky if you get loaded the next day. If you get two trips in a row, that’s not going to be enough to make you drive hard enough to lie on your log and it probably won’t happen next time. Drivers usually get a reset on their hours at least once a week, so why do all the work that it take to lie for no reason.

More about how it goes after tomorrow. I’m interested to see the tools they use to audit stuff and how picky she’s going to be. She seemed nice enough, she’s retiring in 16 months and has been working for the Fed for many, many years. She even told us she’s getting a raise in January. I guess the Federal government is the job to get nowadays. The State used to be pretty good and it still is, but Cindy is getting more and more work piled on her and all the State workers have to take an unpaid day off every month. It amounts to about a 4 percent pay cut. But she’s still employed, but no one likes have to do more work for less money. I know how that is, truckers have been doing that for the last year or more.

We’re doing a lot more on a lot less. After this fall it may be time to find another way to pay for classes. Getting used books only stretches the dollar so far. I started out with four classes this summer and the classes different ending dates. Some have been more compressed than others. One four week class I was slammed with something due almost every day and that was when I drove to Seattle and back so two days up and two days back I couldn’t do anything. Probably won’t be taking another four week class again. My six week class is done, almost the same but better. I finally got ahead of schedule on that one. Now I’m down to two classes and I’m bored. I may take five classes in the fall. If I spend the equivalent of an entire day (since I’m not working) on one class, I should be fine and I have the weekend if it get really bad.

I started out taking all computer classes, that now I have to catch up and start taking the general ed stuff. Two computer classes and two or three gen ed stuff. Plus some home study on math should keep me busy. I need to get my math up to speed before I take the math placement. I don’t want to waste my time and money on math classes that don’t count.