Hours Of Service
We feel this is an important tool for carriers to use in providing on-going training to drivers as well as monitoring their hours of service violations to insure all drivers are complying with the Rules in Part 395. This, along with a good disciplinary policy for non-compliance is a step towards total DOT COMPLIANCE.
All carries should be performing a regular audit of their driver’s logs and hours of service records. This could consist of time cards for local drivers, logs for over the road drivers or a combination of time cards and logs for drivers that do both types of work.
This should be performed at least once a month or even twice a month would be better but depending on the company’s needs. The more frequent the audit could help in getting the results back to the driver faster so that they can take corrective action for the future.
Our audit consists of taking the log and manually reviewing each one to insure it is properly filled out according to the regulations. All major critical type driving rule violations are documented for driver disciplinary action. Manually auditing the driver logs will assist us in ensuring that the driver is being accurate with his or her documentation.
With this method of manually auditing the driver logs, we check for False Logs. We compare the logs to other supporting documents that contain time and date information, for example fuel tickets, bill of ladings, fuel reports, and GPS reports to name a few.
In addition, we also provide an audit report to the Carrier for every log audit performed. Each driver is made aware of the violations that were found. If no violations were found, we produce a “Congratulations” letter to them thanking them for their efforts. We also encourage the Carriers to implement an incentive program (Monetary) to reward the driver for his/her efforts in abiding by the FMCSA Regulations.