Safety & Compliance
What is FMCSA compliance?
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regulates safety for interstate motor carriers. Compliance covers driver qualification, hours of service, vehicle inspection, drug & alcohol testing, accident records, and more. The system that scores your compliance is called CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability).
Why does your CSA score matter?
Your safety data sits in two public places, and they are not the same thing. The SAFER snapshot shows your inspection and crash totals and your out-of-service rates. The SMS site shows how those inspections score by BASIC — but since the FAST Act a property carrier's percentiles are visible only to that carrier, after it logs in. Brokers, insurers and shippers read what is public before they work with you. A weak record means higher insurance, more roadside attention, and lost business.
How do I stay audit-ready between audits?
Audit readiness is a year-round state, not a week of scrambling before a deadline: driver qualification files current, hours-of-service records retained and actually reviewed, the drug-and-alcohol program running with its random selections done on schedule, maintenance and periodic-inspection files complete. That is what this service keeps in order — including through your first 12 months, when the FMCSA New Entrant safety audit lands. When an audit is already scheduled, or a notice has arrived, that is our DOT audit representation service.
What can trigger a DOT audit or intervention?
A high CSA score in any BASIC, a crash or complaint, a roadside-inspection pattern, or your New Entrant status. We monitor those signals and fix the processes behind them — maintenance, HOS, driver files — before they escalate.
How do I improve a bad CSA score?
A measure moves two ways, and we work both. Data that is factually wrong goes to DataQs, FMCSA's request-for-data-review system: we prepare and submit the challenge with the evidence, and the reviewing agency decides it. Data that is correct changes only on the calendar: we fix the programs behind it — maintenance, HOS, drug-and-alcohol — and as clean inspections accumulate the time weights reduce what the old violations carry. We provide the challenge, the programs and the records; the measure itself is FMCSA's to compute.
Do you need safety & compliance help?
You need this if
- You are a new carrier still inside your FMCSA New Entrant period: a safety audit is coming, and your authority rides on passing it.
- A CSA BASIC is trending high, or you have had a crash, a complaint, or a pattern of roadside violations.
- Brokers, shippers or insurers are pricing you off your public safety data, and you want the record behind it corrected and current.
You do not need this if
- Nothing recent to fix and no audit due: clean roadside history, driver files current, CSA BASICs well under threshold.
- What you actually need is one specific filing — a permit, an IFTA return, authority work — rather than ongoing safety management.
Your inspection and crash history is public whether or not you look at it. Brokers, insurers and shippers do.
Already have an audit notice? Start hereAudit Readiness, Year-Round
Keeping you ready for the audits that come: the documentation where it should be, gaps closed before an auditor finds them, and a dry run of the files an auditor asks for first. Once an audit is actually scheduled, it moves to our DOT audit representation service — where we work with the auditor directly and, on an onsite audit, sit through it with you.
CSA & SAFER Monitoring
Continuous review of your FMCSA safety profile, SAFER snapshot, and CSA/SMS indicators. Early warnings on increasing alerts. DataQ disputes for incorrect inspection or crash data.
Safety & Compliance Services Offered
Everything for an audit-ready safety practice:
- DOT New Entrant Audit Prep: Documents, process walkthrough, and audit-day support during the 18-month new entrant period.
- IRP Audit: Mileage records review, audit response coordination.
- IFTA Audit: Fuel tax records review and audit defense.
- Driver Qualification File Audit: Review of all DQ files for completeness — MVR, medical, employment history, road test, etc.
- Audit Removal / Reschedule: Request removal from an audit or reschedule when justified.
- Audit Action Correction Plan: Build the formal corrective action plan FMCSA requires after a violation.
- Safety Management Plan: Written safety management plan tailored to your fleet.
- CSA / SAFER Safety Score Review: Read-through of your public profile and improvement recommendations.
- Crash Report Filing: Filing crash reports correctly to avoid CSA score impacts.
- Driver MVR Check: Motor Vehicle Record checks across states.
- PSP Record Pull: Pre-employment Screening Program records for driver hires.
- HazMat Training: Required HazMat training for drivers handling hazardous materials.
- Violation Issue Handling: Address citations and violations before they impact CSA.
- Tolls (Unpaid) Resolution: Clear unpaid toll holds before they impact registration.
- Financial Responsibility (FL): Fix insurance-related holds that can suspend Florida registration.
Stay Ahead of Renewals
We track every renewal deadline on your account — IFTA quarterly, IRP annual, MCS-150 biennial, drug & alcohol program, UCR — and remind you before agencies do. We prepare and file each renewal on its schedule; you approve and pay; the agency issues.
Request a callback
Tell us what you need and we'll call you back — usually the same business day.