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Driver Qualification (DQ) Monitoring
02/05/09
Section 391 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Handbook explains the motor carrier's responsibilities with regards to hiring drivers, and maintaining legal records for the same. In addition to a myriad of pre-employment requirements, the carrier must keep track of current driver's license and medical card expiration dates, periodically test for drug and alcohol use, and perform annual reviews.
Although it's possible to keep up on DQ files manually, it's not recommended. A good trucking software package will make managing all of these requirements a breeze.
It should not be necessary for any part of DQ file management to be done manually. The software should automatically warn drivers of upcoming expirations on pay stubs or what have you. It should also have the ability to notify managers and dispatchers when any of these requirements have not been met or are soon to expire. There should be a means to block a non-qualified driver from being assigned.
There are new safety training and compliance training requirements regularly mandated by FMCSA that each driver must complete throughout the year. The trucking software should be flexible enough to add these new training requirements and monitor who has completed the training.
When existing requirements are changed, or new regulations are passed, you should ensure that your trucking software system provider can quickly modify their software to adapt to the changes.
In today's political and economic climate, we can all anticipate additional driver qualification requirements will be added. If you are manually tracking all of these requirements now, it's time for you to look at a trucking software system.
One of the best ones out there is the TruckMaster Trucking Software system. We have a system that is affordable for the small carrier, yet powerful enough for the large carrier. It gives you all you need to manage your business, including (but certainly not limited to) driver qualification management.
Craig Sorensen
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™
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