Vehicle DOT and FMCSA compliance field guide for paving contractors

DOT compliance, and why your trucks may make you a motor carrier

DOT compliance is the body of federal motor-carrier safety rules, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations in 49 CFR Parts 390 through 397, that apply to anyone who runs a commercial motor vehicle in commerce. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration writes and enforces them. A motor carrier is not just a trucking company with a yard full of tractors. It is anyone who operates a qualifying truck to move property for a business, and a paving contractor hauling asphalt, dragging a skid steer on a trailer, or running a tandem dump is doing exactly that.

The trap is that most contractors never think to check, because they pave for a living and do not see themselves as a trucking outfit. The rules do not care. Once a vehicle crosses the size line, the truck and the driver are inside the same federal system as a long-haul carrier, with a shorter list of obligations if the work stays close to home but the same out-of-service exposure at the roadside.

What you owe as a carrier falls into a few buckets: a USDOT number, qualified drivers with files to prove it, hours-of-service limits, daily and annual inspections, a drug-and-alcohol program if any driver needs a CDL, and the records that back all of it. The penalties are not theoretical. A roadside inspection can put a truck or a driver out of service on the spot, the load sits, and per-violation fines stack quickly. Two sibling guides connect here. The equipment fleet maintenance program covers the daily inspection report and the annual inspection mechanics, and the asphalt paving estimating and takeoff guide is where the real cost of running compliant trucks belongs in the bid.

What makes a contractor a motor carrier?

You become a motor carrier when a vehicle you run for the business meets the commercial-motor-vehicle definition, and the first line most contractors cross is weight. The FMCSA generally treats a vehicle as a CMV in interstate commerce when it has a gross vehicle weight rating, gross combination weight rating, or actual gross weight of 10,001 lb or more. The rating on the door sticker controls, not what the truck happens to weigh empty that day.

Read that against your own iron and the line is closer than it looks. A one-ton dually rated at 11,000 lb is already over by itself. A three-quarter-ton pickup under 10,001 lb becomes a CMV the moment it pulls an equipment trailer when the combination rating tops 10,001 lb. That is most crews towing a skid steer or a roller, and they are usually doing it on a regular driver license without knowing the truck just entered the federal system.

Above the size trigger sit the use triggers. Hauling a placardable quantity of hazardous material makes any vehicle a CMV regardless of weight. The thresholds below are the common federal numbers, so know your ratings and where each truck and trailer combination lands. Confirm the figures against the FMCSA and your state before you rely on them, because intrastate rules can differ.

Interstate vs intrastate, and why you check both

Interstate commerce is the federal trigger, and it is broader than crossing a state line in the truck. The FMCSA counts a trip as interstate when the vehicle, the cargo, or the larger shipment it belongs to moves between states, even if the truck itself stays inside one state on a given leg. Haul material that originated out of state, or run a load that finishes across the line, and you are in interstate commerce. That is when the federal rules apply at the 10,001 lb mark.

Intrastate commerce is work that stays entirely within your home state, start to finish, with no out-of-state origin or destination. Intrastate carriers answer to the state rather than directly to the FMCSA, and most states have adopted the federal safety regulations as their own. The catch is that the state can set its own thresholds. Some apply the safety rules at a lower weight, some at 26,001 lb, and some require a USDOT number even for purely intrastate trucks.

A handful of rules ride along no matter which side you are on. The CDL standards, the drug-and-alcohol testing rules, and the entry-level driver training requirements were adopted federally and apply to qualifying drivers in both interstate and intrastate operation. Figure out which kind of commerce each truck runs, then check the matching rulebook, federal or state. The honest answer for most contractors is that they do some of both across a season, so they hold to the stricter set.

How do you get a USDOT number?

You register with the FMCSA, online, and the USDOT number itself is free. The number is the file the agency keeps on your operation, and it follows you through every inspection, crash report, and audit for the life of the company. Get it before you run a qualifying truck in interstate commerce, not after a roadside inspection asks for it.

Registration is not a one-time chore. The Motor Carrier Identification Report, the MCS-150, has to be refreshed on a biennial schedule, meaning every two years, and the month is keyed to the last two digits of your USDOT number. You file the update even if nothing changed about the company. Let it lapse and the FMCSA can deactivate the number and assess civil penalties, which turns a five-minute online update into a parked fleet.

Whether you need more than a USDOT number depends on what you haul and for whom. A contractor moving its own materials and equipment to its own jobs is generally a private carrier, and the USDOT number is usually the registration piece. Haul property for other people for pay, and you are a for-hire carrier, which commonly adds operating authority, an MC number, and insurance filings on top. The line between private and for-hire is worth getting right with the FMCSA, because it changes what you owe.

When does a driver need a CDL?

A commercial driver license is keyed to the vehicle, not the cargo or the trade. The common federal lines: a single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 lb or more needs a Class B, a combination with a GCWR of 26,001 lb or more where the towed unit is rated over 10,000 lb GVWR needs a Class A, and any vehicle hauling a placardable quantity of hazmat or designed for 16 or more passengers needs the matching class and endorsement. The manufacturer rating governs, not the loaded weight on the scale.

The combination rule is the one that catches paving crews. A pickup rated under 26,001 lb that pulls a heavy equipment trailer can push the combined rating past 26,001 lb, and the trailer is over 10,000 lb, so the rig is a Class A combination and the operator needs a Class A CDL. Plenty of crews run that setup on a personal license for years until a roadside inspection or a crash makes it everyone's problem.

Getting the license runs through your state driver licensing agency: a commercial learner permit, the knowledge tests, and a skills test in a representative vehicle, plus the federally required entry-level driver training for new CDL holders. Each driver also self-certifies the category of commerce they operate in when they apply. Confirm the class and endorsements your trucks demand against the FMCSA and your state, since state intrastate definitions can shift the lines.

What is a driver qualification file?

A driver qualification file, the DQ file, is the folder that proves a given driver is legally allowed to operate your trucks. The FMCSA spells out the contents, commonly cited at 49 CFR 391.51, and an auditor goes through it line by line. Miss a piece and the driver is not qualified on paper, no matter how good they are behind the wheel.

The core contents are the employment application, the motor vehicle record pulled from the state when the driver was hired, the road test certificate or an accepted equivalent such as a valid CDL, the medical examiner's certificate with a note verifying the examiner is on the National Registry, and then, every year, a fresh motor vehicle record plus a written note of the annual review of that record. The annual MVR and review are the parts that quietly expire, because hiring-day paperwork feels done and nobody circles back twelve months later.

Build the file before the driver turns a wheel, and keep it current for as long as they are employed plus the retention period after they leave, commonly three years for the file. Treat it as a living record, not a hiring formality. The annual review is where you catch the suspended license or the string of violations before the FMCSA or your insurer does, and it is the single most common gap a new-entrant audit finds.

The DOT medical card and the physical

Every driver who operates a CMV that requires it has to carry a current medical examiner's certificate, the DOT medical card, officially Form MCSA-5876. It is issued only by a medical examiner listed on the FMCSA National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners, so a physical from a family doctor who is not on the registry does not count. The card runs for up to 24 months, and the examiner can issue a shorter term, often one year, when a condition like blood pressure or diabetes needs watching.

For CDL holders the medical piece ties into the license. The driver self-certifies the type of commerce they run with the state driver licensing agency, and the medical certification now flows electronically from the examiner into the federal system and on to the state record. A CDL whose medical certification has lapsed can be downgraded by the state, which takes the license out of commercial status without the driver touching it.

The blunt part is simple. An expired medical card means the driver is not qualified, and a driver who is not qualified is out of service at the roadside. That parks the truck and the load it was carrying. Track the expiration date the same way you track the registration, because it stops the work just as cold.

What are the hours-of-service limits?

Hours of service, in 49 CFR Part 395, caps how long a driver can work and drive so fatigue does not end up in the back of someone's car. For property-carrying drivers the federal limits are an 11-hour driving cap after 10 consecutive hours off duty, all of it inside a 14-hour on-duty window that starts the moment the driver begins any work and does not pause for lunch, a required 30-minute break after 8 cumulative hours of driving, and a weekly ceiling of 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days, which a 34-hour restart resets.

The window is the part that bites paving crews. The 14 hours run from the first punch of the day, so an early-morning truck warm-up, the wait at the plant, and the drive to the job all eat the clock before the first load moves. A driver who started at 5 a.m. is out of driving time by 7 p.m. whether or not they spent the day actually rolling.

These are the federal numbers for interstate operation. A state can set different hours for intrastate work, and some give intrastate drivers more room. Before you build a schedule around a number, confirm it against the FMCSA for interstate and your state for intrastate, because the two do not always match.

What is the short-haul exemption?

The short-haul exemption is the relief most contractors actually live on, and it is why a local paving crew does not run electronic logs. A driver who works within a 150 air-mile radius of the normal reporting location and returns to it, released from duty within 14 hours, is exempt from keeping records of duty status, exempt from the electronic logging device, and exempt from the mandatory 30-minute break. The driving and on-duty limits still apply. The detailed logging does not.

Air miles, not road miles. A 150 air-mile radius is a straight-line circle, so it covers more ground than the odometer suggests, and a yard-based crew working the metro area is almost always inside it. The trade-off is a timecard. The carrier has to keep a record showing each day's report time, release time, total on-duty hours, and the running 7-day total, and hold those timecards for at least 6 months.

The exemption is per day, and it is fragile. The day a driver goes past 150 air miles, or is not released within the 14 hours, they lose short-haul for that day and owe a full log for it. If a driver needs full logs only occasionally, doing it 8 or fewer days in any rolling 30 lets them use paper rather than an electronic device. Most paving operations qualify for short-haul most of the time, but confirm the current radius and time conditions against the FMCSA and your state, and know which days fall outside it.

The electronic logging device

An electronic logging device records driving time automatically and is required only when a driver has to keep records of duty status. That is the hinge. If your drivers run inside the short-haul exemption on the timecard, they generally do not keep records of duty status, so they generally do not need an ELD. Step outside the exemption and the logging obligation comes back, and with it the device.

A few other carve-outs exist alongside short-haul. Trucks with an engine model year before 2000, driveaway-towaway moves, and the 8-days-in-30 paper allowance let some drivers avoid the device. None of those change the underlying hours limits. They only change how the time gets recorded.

The practical read for a contractor: most local crews stay on the timecard and skip the ELD, but the operation that sends a driver on a long out-of-town haul needs a plan for those days. Decide before the truck leaves whether that trip blows the exemption, because sorting it out at a roadside inspection is the expensive way to learn the answer. Confirm the ELD triggers and exemptions against the current FMCSA rule.

The daily driver vehicle inspection report

The daily driver vehicle inspection report, the DVIR, is the driver's record that the truck was checked and any defect was reported. Federal rules expect a driver to inspect the vehicle and, where a condition affects safe operation, prepare a written report when the day ends so the next driver does not unknowingly take out a truck with bad brakes or a dead light. The pre-trip and post-trip habit is also the first thing that keeps a roadside inspection short.

The mechanics of the walkaround and the defect-to-repair loop live in the sibling equipment fleet maintenance program guide, so this is the compliance half: the report has to exist, the defects have to be addressed before the truck runs again, and the signed records have to be retained, commonly for 3 months. A DVIR that lives on a clipboard in the cab is a DVIR you cannot produce in an audit.

This is one place a field-service system earns its keep. A driver completes the DVIR on a phone, a flagged defect routes to whoever fixes it, and the signed report is stored against that vehicle with a date, so the record is there when an auditor or an insurer asks instead of lost in a truck somewhere. The point is not the app. The point is that the proof survives the day it was created.

Do contractor trucks need a DOT inspection?

Yes. A CMV has to pass a periodic inspection at least once every 12 months, the annual DOT inspection, commonly cited at 49 CFR 396.17. It covers the components listed in Appendix A to Part 396, the brakes, steering, lights, tires, frame, and the rest, and it is a deeper look than a daily walkaround. The proof is either the inspection report kept on file or a decal on the vehicle, retained per the federal schedule, commonly 14 months.

Who can sign it matters. The inspection has to be done by a qualified inspector under 49 CFR 396.19, someone with the training or experience the rule describes, often at least a year of combined training and experience, who knows the Part 393 standards. Your own mechanic can qualify, or you can use a commercial shop as your agent. Keep evidence of the inspector's qualification on file the same as the inspection itself.

Some states fold the annual requirement into a state periodic motor vehicle inspection program, and passing that can satisfy the federal annual inspection. The scheduling, the PM tie-in, and the recordkeeping for the fleet sit in the sibling equipment fleet maintenance program guide. Confirm the interval, the qualified-inspector rule, and any state program against the FMCSA and your state before you set the calendar.

The drug-and-alcohol program and the Clearinghouse

If any driver operates a vehicle that requires a CDL, the carrier has to run a DOT drug-and-alcohol testing program under 49 CFR Part 382. This is not optional and not something you stand up after a positive test. The required tests are pre-employment, random, post-accident under the federal criteria, reasonable suspicion, and the return-to-duty and follow-up tests for a driver coming back after a violation. A negative pre-employment drug test has to be in hand before the driver operates a CMV.

A small contractor with a few CDL drivers does not run the lab work alone. The normal path is to join a consortium or third-party administrator that handles the random pool, the collection sites, the medical review officer, and the annual random rates the FMCSA sets. Random means random. The selections are unannounced and spread across the year.

Layered on top is the Commercial Driver's License Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, the FMCSA database of testing violations. Employers register, run a full query before hiring a CDL driver and a limited query at least once a year on current ones, and report violations into it. Drivers who hold a CDL but only ever operate smaller, non-CDL trucks are a gray area worth confirming with the FMCSA. Get the program and the Clearinghouse queries in place before the driver runs, because this is high on every auditor's list. Under the Clearinghouse-II rule that took effect in November 2024, a driver left in prohibited status for an unresolved drug or alcohol violation has the CDL itself downgraded by the state licensing agency, so an unaddressed positive now pulls the license, not just the right to drive for you.

Your CSA and SMS score

Compliance, Safety, Accountability, CSA, is the FMCSA's enforcement program, and the Safety Measurement System, SMS, is the scoring engine behind it. Every roadside inspection, violation, and crash that involves your trucks attaches to your USDOT number and feeds categories called BASICs, the Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories, which rank you against carriers of similar size. The score is a moving picture of how your operation looks to the agency.

A bad percentile costs you twice. The FMCSA prioritizes higher-scoring carriers for inspections and interventions, so a poor score means your trucks get pulled in more often, which generates more chances for violations, which feeds the score. Insurers pull the same data, and a rough safety profile shows up as a higher premium or a non-renewal. The score does not stay inside the regulator's office.

One clarification that trips people up: the SMS score by itself does not put a carrier out of service. An out-of-service order against the company comes out of a compliance review, the deeper on-site audit. What the score does is decide how likely that review and those inspections become. Clean roadside inspections lower it, so a driver who runs a tight log and a sound truck is improving the number every time they pass through a scale.

The roadside inspection and out-of-service

A roadside inspection is where the paperwork meets the pavement. Inspections run in levels under the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance standard. A Level I is the full check, driver and vehicle, where the inspector reviews the license, medical card, hours of service, and drug-and-alcohol status, then goes over the brakes, tires, lights, and the rest, sometimes under the truck. A Level II is a walkaround, and a Level III is driver credentials and hours only.

Serious defects trigger an out-of-service order under the North American Out-of-Service Criteria that the FMCSA adopts by reference. A driver with an expired medical card, an hours violation, or a critical mechanical defect like failed brakes can be parked on the spot, and the truck or the driver cannot move until it is fixed or, for a vehicle, sometimes towed. A clean Level I, Level V, or Level VI earns a CVSA decal that can reduce how often the truck gets pulled in.

Two habits keep these short. Drivers who can produce the license, medical card, and current log fast signal a squared-away carrier, and a truck that passes its DVIR and annual inspection rarely throws a vehicle violation. Get the inspection report into your records either way, pass or fail, because it feeds your CSA score and you want your own copy of what was written down.

IFTA fuel tax and IRP apportioned plates

Run heavy trucks across state lines and two more registrations show up: the International Registration Plan, IRP, and the International Fuel Tax Agreement, IFTA. IRP gives you an apportioned license plate so your registration fees get divided among the states you actually drive in. IFTA is a single fuel-tax license under which you file quarterly, reporting miles run and fuel bought by state so each state collects its share of fuel tax.

Both hinge on a qualified motor vehicle, commonly a vehicle or combination over 26,000 lb gross weight, or one with three or more axles regardless of weight, operating in two or more member jurisdictions. The keys are interstate operation and the weight or axle threshold together. A big tandem dump that crosses a state line for a job is the classic trigger.

Most local paving never touches these, because the work stays in one state and IFTA and IRP key off interstate travel. The contractor who hauls a loaded qualified vehicle across the line is the one who needs the apportioned plate and the fuel-tax filings, and missing a quarterly IFTA return is its own penalty. Separately, most interstate carriers also owe the annual Unified Carrier Registration, UCR, a fee scaled to fleet size that is easy to miss because it comes due every year on its own. Confirm the weight and axle thresholds and the jurisdiction rules with IFTA, IRP, and your base state before deciding you are clear.

Marking the truck

A power unit that operates in interstate commerce has to be marked, under 49 CFR 390.21, with the carrier's legal name or a single registered trade name and the USDOT number preceded by the letters USDOT, on both sides of the vehicle. The lettering has to contrast sharply with the background and be legible in daylight from 50 ft while the truck is stopped. The rule does not dictate a font, a letter height, a logo, or a phone number.

It sounds minor, and it is the easiest violation an inspector writes, because it is visible from across the lot before the driver rolls down the window. Magnetic placards are fine as long as the markings stay on and stay legible. A name that does not match the legal name on file, or a missing USDOT line, is still a violation.

Some states require intrastate carriers to mark their trucks too, sometimes with a state-issued number. If your trucks run both kinds of commerce, mark them for the stricter case and confirm the state requirement, so the same truck is compliant whether it crosses the line that day or not.

The new-entrant audit and the compliance review

A brand-new carrier does not get a grace period from the rules, only a watch period. After you get authority, the FMCSA puts you in a new-entrant monitoring window, commonly 18 months, and schedules a safety audit, usually within the first 12 months. The audit confirms you have the basics actually in place: driver qualification files, a drug-and-alcohol program, hours-of-service records, vehicle inspection records, and the required insurance. Fail it and the registration can be revoked and the operation placed out of service unless you correct the gaps in time.

The lesson is to build the file system before the trucks run, not the week the auditor calls. The items that sink a new entrant are the dull ones: a DQ file missing the annual MVR, no Clearinghouse queries, no proof the random testing pool exists. None of that is hard to keep. It is only hard to reconstruct after the fact.

Past the new-entrant window, the deeper audit is the compliance review, triggered by a poor CSA score, a complaint, a serious crash, or a pattern of violations. It is the same exercise with higher stakes and a rating attached. A carrier that kept its records current all along treats either one as an afternoon of pulling files rather than a fire drill.

The records and how long you keep them

Compliance is proven by records, and the records have retention periods that an auditor knows cold. A driver qualification file is held through employment plus about 3 years. Hours-of-service supporting documents and short-haul timecards run about 6 months. DVIRs run about 3 months. The annual inspection report runs about 14 months. Drug-and-alcohol records split by result, with verified positives held about 5 years and negatives about 1 year. Confirm each period against the current FMCSA rule, because the exact terms vary by document.

The failure mode is rarely that the work was not done. It is that the proof cannot be found, or it expired into the trash before the retention period ran, or it sat in a truck and never made it to a file. An auditor who cannot see the record treats it as a record that does not exist, and the violation is the same as if you skipped the requirement.

This is the case for keeping driver and vehicle records in one system instead of a wall of binders. In FieldOS, the DQ documents, medical cards, inspection reports, and DVIRs attach to the driver and the truck they belong to, each with a date, so a query for what is on file and what is expiring is a search, not an afternoon. The tool matters less than the principle: a record you can produce on demand is the only record that protects you.

Tracking the expirations

Half of DOT compliance is not doing a thing once. It is catching the things that expire before they expire. The medical card runs out at 24 months or less. The CDL renews on the state cycle. The annual inspection comes due every 12 months. The MCS-150 biennial update has a month tied to your USDOT number. IFTA and the apportioned plate renew on their own calendars. Any one of them lapsing turns a qualified driver or a legal truck into a violation overnight.

An expired medical card is the sharpest example, because it does not degrade gradually. The day after it expires, the driver is not qualified and is out of service if inspected, full stop. The same logic holds for a lapsed annual inspection or a downgraded CDL. There is no partial credit for being a week late.

Tracking this on memory or a paper calendar is how it gets missed, because the dates are scattered across drivers, trucks, and the company itself. A field system that stores each expiration and warns you ahead of time is the difference between renewing on schedule and finding out at the scale. In FieldOS you set the expiry date on each medical card, license, and inspection, and the reminder lands before the date, not after. Whatever you use, the rule is the same: an expired card is an out-of-service driver, so the date has to be on something that nudges you first.

What non-compliance actually costs

The cost shows up in four ways, and they compound. First, the fines. Per-violation civil penalties from the FMCSA add up across a single inspection, and recordkeeping and registration failures carry their own daily and per-occurrence amounts. Second, out-of-service time. A parked truck or a sidelined driver stops the job, the load waits, and the crew downstream bills against work that produced nothing.

Third, insurance. A rough CSA score and a history of violations raise premiums or cost you the policy, and that bill arrives every year, not once. Fourth, and the one that ends companies, liability in a crash. When a truck you put on the road is in a serious wreck, the plaintiff's first move is to subpoena the DQ file, the medical card, the hours logs, and the maintenance records. A missing medical card or a skipped annual inspection becomes negligent qualification or negligent maintenance, and the number stops looking like a fine.

Set against that, the program is cheap. The USDOT number is free, the testing consortium is a modest annual cost, and the files take a system and a habit. The expensive path is always the one where you find out what you owed during the audit, the inspection, or the deposition.

Common mistakes

• Not realizing the trucks make you a motor carrier, so the USDOT number and the rest were never set up.
• Running with no driver qualification file, or one missing the annual MVR and review note.
• Letting a DOT medical card expire, which makes the driver not qualified and out of service.
• Mis-applying hours of service or the short-haul exemption, including miscounting the 14-hour window from the first punch.
• Running CDL drivers with no drug-and-alcohol program and no Clearinghouse queries.
• Skipping the annual DOT inspection or using an inspector who does not meet the qualification rule.
• Letting the MCS-150 biennial update lapse and getting the USDOT number deactivated.

What to document

An auditor and an inspector both work from a list, and the list is the same one your records should answer without a scramble. The table pairs each requirement with what it covers and a note on where to confirm the detail. Treat every threshold and section number in it as something to verify against the FMCSA and your state, because the figures move between rule cycles and intrastate rules differ.

Field checklist

Standards and references

The framework is the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, 49 CFR, enforced by the FMCSA. The pieces a contractor touches sit across Parts 390 through 397: Part 390 for general applicability, the CMV definition, and truck marking, commonly at 390.21; Part 391 for driver qualification and the DQ file, commonly at 391.51, and the medical certification at 391.41 and following; Part 395 for hours of service and the short-haul exemption; Part 396 for inspection, repair, and maintenance, with the annual periodic inspection at 396.17 and inspector qualifications at 396.19; and Part 382 for controlled-substances and alcohol testing. The CDL standards live in Part 383.

Beyond the FMCSA, the state DOT controls intrastate operation and often adopts the federal rules with its own thresholds, so check both. The FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse is the federal database for CDL testing violations. The International Fuel Tax Agreement and the International Registration Plan, administered through your base state, govern fuel tax and apportioned registration for qualified interstate vehicles. The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance publishes the inspection levels and the out-of-service criteria the FMCSA adopts.

The thresholds, hours, and section numbers in this guide are the common federal figures as a starting point, not a substitute for the current rule. Section numbers and limits change between code cycles, and intrastate rules differ by state. The three things to get right before anything else: know whether your trucks make you a motor carrier, keep a complete DQ file with a current medical card for every driver, and apply hours of service and the short-haul exemption correctly while running the drug program for CDL drivers. Confirm the specifics against the FMCSA and your state before you rely on them.

Units, terms, and abbreviations

DOT compliance runs on a stack of acronyms, and the same idea shows up under different labels across a registration form, a roadside report, and a state rule.

Weight ratings come as GVWR for a single vehicle, GCWR for a combination, and GVW or GCW for the actual loaded weight. The CMV size trigger and the CDL lines key off these. Air miles, used in the short-haul radius, are straight-line nautical miles and cover more ground than road miles.

CMV

Commercial motor vehicle, generally a vehicle or combination at 10,001 lb or more in interstate commerce, or carrying hazmat or 16-plus passengers

GVWR / GCWR

Gross vehicle weight rating for a single unit, gross combination weight rating for a truck plus trailer, set by the manufacturer

USDOT number

The FMCSA identifier for a motor carrier, kept current with the biennial MCS-150 update

DQ file

Driver qualification file, the records proving a driver is legally qualified, commonly under 49 CFR 391.51

HOS

Hours of service, the federal limits on driving and on-duty time in 49 CFR Part 395

DVIR

Driver vehicle inspection report, the daily record of the vehicle check and any defects

Clearinghouse

The FMCSA database of CDL drug-and-alcohol testing violations, with pre-employment and annual query duties

CSA / SMS / BASICs

The FMCSA enforcement program, its scoring system, and the safety categories that track your USDOT number

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