Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast

Truck Driver File, What Is Required? And What Should Be In It?

April 01, 2022 John Farquhar & Chris Harris Season 2 Episode 23
Trucking Risk and Insurance Podcast
Truck Driver File, What Is Required? And What Should Be In It?
Show Notes Transcript

First in a Series of Compliance and Truck Driver Files.

Today's session is an overview of the truck driver file with a free Truck Driver File Checklist: Truck Driver File Checklist


John Farquhar
Summit Risk Solutions
1 226 802-2762
John@summitrisksolutions.ca
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-farquhar-9b88771a2/?originalSubdomain=ca

Chris Harris
Safety Dawg Inc: safetydawg.com
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
1 905 973 7056
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/3764255/admin/

Welcome to another episode of the trucking risk and insurance Podcast, where John whoops, the other way, The other way, there we go. Have some fun. That's all. That's right. That's today Before we get started, can I say something? Check out my new shirt, check, check this out. This is, this is just awesome. Like, you know, I got this really cool shirt on with, with this big logo that says trucking risk and insurance podcast. You know what? This just makes me feel that much more important. Hey, Johnny, we decided was a great suggestion, by the way, this was John's suggestion that we do a series of podcasts. So we've got some guests coming up, but in between, we're going to be throwing a series together and we're going to be talking about truck driver files, right? Yup, yup. How important they are, what should be in there, what what's required by law and we'll even talk about, what's a good practice. What should you have in there? Where and how you should keep these things in, in compliance as well as some people kind of put way too much information in there that shouldn't be in a particular file, but we should get that in another file. So we're going to talk about how all this information should be collected, gathered, and combined. We're going to, we're going to be talking about truck driver files, the rules, the regs. And we're going to give you some tips and tricks on how to get things in there. You know, so we're, we'll do an episode for example, on a road evaluation and what should be, you know, all that kind of stuff. Hey, maybe I should pull my mic down. Can hear you now. Oh, Lordy, Lordy. Got it. Got to love doing lives on Friday because can I get rid of it somehow I keep shrinking tenured. Why do we need 10 years on an application for them, John? Well, requirement by law. We want to kind of have an idea of, well, what was your history like over the last 10 years? Hey, maybe you worked at the same employer for 10 years. Awesome. But maybe you've worked at 20 different employers over the last 10 years. So it's, it's kind of important that we get an idea of the structure of your background. All right. And for some reason, again, even at your daughter's now you are freezing. Hi, it's just wild in a top secret location here in Southwestern Ontario. So try and pick it out on the map. So you got to have 10 years in the FMC is he says you got, do a history investigation for three years, but if the person had a CVL going back, you may have to go back all the way to 10. If they had a commercial driver's license, CDL eight, using those acronyms in case somebody doesn't understand them. All right, next one on the list, a signed drug test. Pre-employment statement. What the heck are they talking about giant? Well, you know, if you're going to run to the U S here in this case, we have to be in compliance with the drug and alcohol regulations. So most drivers will have to do a preemployment tests. So the trick is we're signing off on that as a driver, we're giving the company permission to gather this information on our behalf and Hey, tell us where to go get our, our tests done. Yeah. And what drugs are going to be testing for Alcohol as well? Yup. Yup. I was just going to say EG cannabis. Yep. Cocaine leave my thin fed amines. Yeah. There's a whole list there. I can't say. Yeah, no, I know some of them are quite about this long, so yeah. So, but that that'll all will be on that statement to tell you what they're being tested for. So, so there's usually no prescription medication, unless of course you're a prescription medication is a banned substance. Well, yeah. Well, in the long to them, it has happened. Let me see if I can put myself on here. It has happened. I don't know what's going on today, but it has happened. Doctors prescribed things like what's a new oil, cannabis products, CBD oil, And they can have THC in them if you're not careful and which is bad for truck drivers, it could be troublesome. Yeah. And you could be on a, a Tylenol that has a high codene level, which will cause you to test positive. So, so these are things. So it's always a matter of, you know, if you're going to get into prescription medication, make sure that your doctor knows that you are a cross border truck driver and that you have to, you know, test randomly for banned substances so that they make sure they don't give you something they shouldn't be. Yeah. So it's called communication, talk to your doctor and let them know what it is that you do. Right. And that's where that preemployment statement is so important. Like you should actually request a copy of that from the employer when you're signing it to go. Can I have a copy of that? So I make sure that I am aware of what these banned substances are. So when I have a conversation with my doctor and he goes, Hey, we're going to put you on these new kinds of medications and whatnot. Hey, does it qualify with this, this list here? Am I not going to make sure you're not going to get in trouble? Yeah. Good idea. I had not thought of that. So that's a great suggestion. Ask, get a photocopy of this document that you're signing so that you can take it to your doctor. Yep. So next is controlled substance test results. And I put a little note here before entering, before being dispatched to the U S or entering the U S but what are we talking about? Why This, this is where we got to have the results of that drug and alcohol testing. We need to make sure that we're again qualified. We're not under the influence or have any of these banned substances in our body before we go to the U S the U S says, don't even think about it. If you've got that in your system. Yeah. You just gotta make sure you're clear. And I mean, th the company dispatching, you has to have negative test results on file, right before you enter the U S right. And then, Hey, this, this thing here, three years of references, And this ties in, yeah. This ties right in with your 10 year history. Right? So what we want to do is we want, we want to verify the first or not the first, the most current three years of your work history. So this is where you would reach out to the previous employer and get some information to go, Hey, what did he do? Any crashes, any violations, any issues would you rehire this person? Things along that line. So this is required for the three-year period. Now, hopefully with any luck, Hey, maybe you've only worked for one employer and it makes your new employer's job real easy, because they just have to do one reference check. So, but if you've had six in the last three years, yeah. We might want to think about, do we want to hire this guy? Because he's even going to stay with us. So, but that's for another conversation. Well, I'm another conversation. How much does it cost to hire a driver? What's the cost of having that truck sit empty anyways, that is another conversation. Next on the list being, oh, let me talk about this one, because This is right up your alley. Well, initial driver abstract. And then the next one, if you're from Ontario or Alberta, I don't know if anybody else has a commercial driver's abstract, but certainly Ontario and Alberta. I do. And I say initial, both of them should be within 30 days of the driver applying, but in case you need to defend, if you ever get sued and this driver's in the crash and you get sued for negligent hiring, this is one of the hiring documents that you made your initial decision upon. So when you hired this driver, you said, Hey, I think this is going to be a good fit for the, and you, part of that decision is based on these documents that you have. So never let me emphasize that again. Never, never throw out the originals. I know a lot of people get striver abstracts every 90 days. Great. Keep them for two years and then toss. It was on the garbage, but not the originals of the abstracts. Anything that helps you make the hiring decision, keep it, keep it, keep it, keep it. So, Hey, that was two for one Deal. Okay. Three year MVR or abstract. The date. Why am I concerned about the date? Well, we want to make sure the date that we received it and the date that was on the document. Cause you had made the comment. I don't want it any more than 30 days old, right? So this is something where we want to go. Well, okay. When did we receive a copy of this? Because a lot of times carriers are probably doing on the basis of the drivers, providing you with a copy of these abstracts, Right. And pro-war MTO. And I think pot regulations. So I, I know Ontario and I think the American regulation says that you have to have a driver abstract every 12 months, a current one. That's what they consider it to be current within 12 months. Right? And so you, you need to know the date of the abstract so that you can pull it on a regular basis. John. And I would tell you every 90 days, but the, the law says once per year, within 12 months, you have to have that on in there. So just thought we would cover that the commercial driver abstract or the CVOR abstract for the driver, same deal there. Ah, copy of the driver license that would be net. Yes. So very important. And one of the things I see, unfortunately, too many times is all we're doing is getting a copy of the front of the license. We need both sides to be in that file front and back of the license. So, you know, when you say copy of the license, that means both sides people, Good point. And that is what is required by law. I just questioned John what's on the backside of an Ontario driver's license nowadays. Is there any information There is, there is there's some barcode information. The big thing is there actually is some dates on the back of that driver's license And that's, I don't, I don't have my non-mirror. I, I I'd even show it to you so, Well, I I'm afraid to show it just in case. Well, we don't want to see, but when your pitcher would get out, you know, and it probably looks like when you were in cell block eight. Well, yeah. Okay. Now I'm wondering, where is my driver's license driving around without a copy of this? I think you need it. You don't need a driver's license because you own a Tesla. It drives off, You know? Yeah. So there is the bar Cody type information there, but like tried to keep it moving, but yeah, nothing else. Yeah. Well, no, it does have some, I can't read that. It says class something on nine class and 12 restrictions. Hopefully that's not me, but it current copy of the driver's license is required. And of course on my list here, I've put down things like expiring date, because again, you got to have a current copy of the Yeah. Well, and, and this is where it's perfect because instead of having to go to the picture that, that, that copy of the driver's license that you've, you've taken, why go looking for that, put it like, you've got it right there. What is the expiry date of that license? That's what's so easy. It's a quick lookup, you know, cause this page is going to be in the front of your driver qualification file and I can have a quick look at it and go, oh, okay. Nope. He's still another year out before his license is gonna expire. This is really good. So rather than having to go through each pitcher, Well, and I'm just, as you're talking there, I'm just thinking, and maybe people can leave us a, what do you call a comment? If this is a value to you, would it be a value for me to make a, an Excel spreadsheet? It would be very simple, an Excel spreadsheet for tracking things like when do I have to pull the abstracts? When, when does a driver's license expire? That would be very simple thing, but I could do it. I can give it away. If you think it's a value, people let us know, or John can make it back. What the heck? Exactly. You know what, Hey, give us some feedback, you know? Cause that's, that's the whole key thing is, is give us some feedback, give us some likes and tell us what you want to see. That's what this whole program is all about. So we, we can't build anything and give it away for free. If you don't tell us what you want. So we're here to help. Exactly. Okay. Criminal record search kind of, you know, important only if you're a cross border carrier maybe. Yeah, Exactly, Exactly. Do Canadian only carriers or regional carriers, carriers that stay within the province. Do they pull a criminal abstracts? Should they pull criminal abstracts? In my mind, it is a best practice by all means. There are a number of customers that will the motor carrier to do a criminal checks on their drivers because of maybe the facility that they're going to go into while loading or unloading, or maybe the fact that the cargo type that they're hauling and stuff like that. So it's definitely a good practice by all means that it doesn't hurt now to say, should you hire a driver that has a criminal background? Well, I guess it depends on what type of criminal activity they've been involved in, you know, not fair to penalize everybody for something that happened in their teenage years when they're now in their forties and fifties, and they've done very well, but there are certain things that, you know, what could stop you from crossing the border could stop you from going into a particular customer facility. So always best to know. And then that way you can work with that driver schedule that drive around on specific runs that will make sure that they're successful on. Yeah. I think that's a great idea, I think, and I hadn't really thought of the customer aspect before, but yeah, I'm sure some customers want you to know you being the trucking company, want you to know who it is that's coming into their facility. So right in traveling written tests, there is some controversy, I think, over this one written test. Yeah. There, there used to be an awesome written test. And you'll probably remember this back from back in the day. Cause I know I completed it several times and I believe it was almost 60, some odd questions long. It was put out by the FMC CSA and it was all based on the FMC FSA regulations. So, and it was an awesome test. It had great, great information and it made you go get out the green and white book and look for the answers if you didn't know them already. And it was a good knowledge verification process. And I loved it. And then the, the USD OT FMC essay took it away and said that no longer needs to be part of the qualification file. But Chris and Al both tell you from a best practice approach, you need to have some knowledge verification in there. We need to verify that these guys know what some of the regulations are, what some of the rules are, you know, even if it's simplistic approaches. Yep. And secondarily, because if they go into the U S they've got to be able to read, write, speak English language sufficiently, to converse with them. Anyways, there's a regulation about being able to read and write well, giving people a certain knowledge test would help verify that they have the, the skills to be able to read and write. So, And the, and the trick with conducting that skill test is to make sure they do it in front of you or in your, on your premises and whatnot, not take it home and have their kids do it. You know, maybe their kids speak better English and whatnot or their brother-in-law. Yeah, no, do it in front of you. That way you can verify, obviously through the interview process, you're going to find out, Hey, you can speak pretty good English. This is good, you know, complete the application so that I can see that you can write and you can do this by having the test done shows me that you can read and you can understand what the answers are that I'm looking for. Okay. Let's get through the next two bullet points and then we're not going to get into the last page. So the next, because you know, there's a lot more on here that I think should be in the driver file, but annual reviews and a record of violation. Yeah. Did you want to do that road test one or is that coming up after? No. Yeah. Okay. We can do road tests. So we got three to cover real quick, the road test and I put down here 40 miles or 65 K is that legit? Like, you know, is that necessary? And we're back up there in viewers, holy smoke. We're hitting record. Oh, good deal. There, there is no requirement by law that says how long your road evaluation needs to be, you know, doing that road test. But it has to be of sufficient nature because of you need to incorporate into that road, test all the various risks and aspects that, that driver's going to do or touch on a daily basis. So yeah. I encourage people, make sure you have left turns, right? Turns, stoplight, stop signs, railroad crossings. Yep. So, you know, there's anything that you're going to deal with in your travels. Shouldn't be part of this. If you're expecting a driver to travel at night, maybe he's going to run a dedicated run and travel at night. Well then let's do the road test at night. You know? So these, these things kind of come in Convenient for me, John. Well, I'm sorry, Chris, but you know what, if you're going to hire people, you gotta be inconvenienced we're in the trucking industry. Yeah, no I I'm in total agreement with you. Yep, exactly. So, and unfortunately I love what you've got there minimum of, of, of required miles because some people are like, yeah, let's go around the block. That's not going to do it. You know, like, like you need to spend an hour or two hours with this guy or this driver, because what you're trying to do is get them to drop their guard because I'll guarantee you, you take me out for a road test. I'm going to be on my best behavior. Actually, I'm going to be on my bestest behavior because I'm going to show you how good I am. But what as an instructor, what I would be doing is trying to get him off guard, distract him, have conversation, get kind of, I want to know a little bit more about you were in the cab together. This is the perfect opportunity. But at the same time, I'm trying to see if I can pull your focus off of the task of driving that vehicle, because that's going to help me to understand, do you have proper control or are you easily distracted? Alrighty, good points, good points. Annual review, record of violation. And this is Something It's in the CVR safety manual that MTO wants to see an annual review. And of course, if you cross border, the FMC essay says you've got to have a certificate of violations, which is where the driver declares to the carrier, what the violations were for the last 12 months. And then the annual review is where the carrier reviews everything and says, yep, this driver is still qualified to work here. So yeah, This is what's perfect. When it, when, when you're pulling your driver abstracts, this, you make this part of that review process. I've actually, I've actually met a couple of carriers who have actually taken the annual review and made it a semi-annual review. You know, they pull their abstracts quarterly, but every six months they do this review because they said we don't want to wait 12 months. We want to make sure all our drivers are on board. We got good drivers and whatnot. And they've found it helps actually with engagement with the driver and go, you know, opportunity to kind of go, wow, good job. You guys are doing great. You know what? I'm very, very happy with your performance. And you know, you can turn it into a performance review if you want. So, but yeah, it just kinda adds a little more fun. Does, does this annual review, this piece of paper, does it have to be conducted in front of the driver? Like does it have to be person to person That would be best practice? Yeah, it would be best practice by all means, but I, I don't believe there's a requirement you have to be sitting across from that person. You could even hand that to their manager and say, Hey, when you're meeting with your drivers, can you kind of go through this? Because there is on that form there and we'll get into that in the, in the series. But in that form, there is a spot for the driver to complete some information and sign off and then for the company representative to sign off. So if you can do it, face-to-face, I think that's way better. It helps the driver understand why you're looking at this information. Yeah, I think that's awesome. And the last thing, this is controversial, the receipt of the FMC is F M C S R driver handbook. So you had mentioned your green and white book. Yup. Yup. Yup. And again, I'm asking for comments out there. Is it the law that you must give this green and white book to every driver who crosses the border? I don't want to answer that. I want to see if we get people to comment. I want to see what the comments are. That's and then, so we'll what we'll do is we'll provide that answer to that when we get to that in our series. So, but right Now We want to hear comment. I'm not even sure where we can provide it because I'd like to know. I know there's a lot of companies that spend 10 to$15 a book and give it to every, because they believe it's part of the regulations and I'm asking for help. Quite honestly, if it is part of the regulations, let me know what the Ray gets. I know the Answer We'll do. Okay. I know the answer, but I'm not going to tell them our listeners have to chime in our listeners. I have to chime in and, and, and tell us what they think the answer is or what they know the answer to be. That would be better. Yeah. That's perfect. Why don't we put a time limit on this, John? How long do you want to withhold the answer? And then you can put it into, you can make a comment. I can pin the comment at the top so that it's there, but what a week a month, how long do you want before you're posting? Well, let's, let's, let's give it a no more than a month. Cause I know there's some people that are, that have got their hands full. I may not be able to get to this with this video within the week, but let's, let's give it a month max. And then by that time we'll probably be into the series and we'll touch into that by all means. Okay, perfect. And this was April fools, Johnny. Hey, April. Well, that's why the computer's messing up on you, Chris. It's April fool's day. If somebody got into your computer. Yes. Perfect. So join us again. We will be doing a series as John and I have said on driver files, as we delve deeper into the, the different components, for instance, you know, Arizona truck driver application form errors that you complete on a road test errors. We didn't even talk about things like PSP reports and the drug testing and how E how easy it is to get the drug testing results from everybody and past history check. Of course I'm being facetious there. So stay tuned, John and I are going to be doing a series. This was the first one. Yep. Thanks for tuning into the trucking risk and insurance podcast. Where guess what we talk about? Trucking risk and insurance. Heck of a nice shirt giant. Let's let's do a closeup. This would be really cool here. Get that going, right. Look at that trucking. Yeah. So there you go. And Hey, just to let everybody know if, if you're in Canada and particularly in Ontario, Chris and I are going to be at truck world here in April, we're going to be doing a, a live broadcast, I believe. Or we might record it one of the two, but Hey, we're hoping to maybe, yeah, we're we don't, we don't have a booth, but we are going to be pilfering on some other people and, and going, traveling around, seeing the show and we're hoping to get together. So keep an eye out for this shirt. Cause Chris, and I'll be both wearing our shirts and our new hats. Well, and we'll be in Uniform. Let's give a shout out to our friend, Bruce outreach, led pedals, radio led pedal podcast, because it'll be his equipment that Bruce is kind enough to say, Hey, why don't you guys do a live from my equipment? I've got my equipment all set up there. And so John and I on the Saturday, we'll be doing, what are we doing? And what hour or a two hour live? I don't know. We'll do something. We're not sure what we're going to do, but we're going to do something anyway. But I believe you're going to be there on the Friday, Friday, Friday. So I can't make it the Thursday and Friday, but I'll be there on the Saturday. So, so if you're there either one of those days, make sure you look for Chris and on Saturday. Look for both of us. Yeah. And I'll do a live on Thursday and Friday because Bruce has been kind enough to say, come on over, do a live two hours. Let me tell you, but it should be some fun. All Right. Well That's it for this week, Johnny. Thanks so much, buddy will weekend You too. Have a great weekend. And everybody out there make sure you like subscribe. And if you don't like this show hit the dislike button twice. There we go. Thanks so much. All right, there, you have it. Another episode of the trucking risk and insurance podcast and all the technical difficulties. I apologize for that. However, if you would like a copy of that driver file checklist, it is in the show notes down below. All right. So get your copy of the driver file checklist. It's in the show notes down below.