Canadian Trucking Best Practices: Deep Dive into Driver References

Best Practices for Driver History Checks: CVOR & NSC Podcast

Join Chris Harris, Safety Dawg, in this informative episode of the CVOR and NSC Podcast as he delves into the importance of driver history checks and best practices for managing safety scores. 

Learn about the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations and how they can serve as valuable guidelines for Canadian carriers. Chris emphasizes the significance of thorough documentation and good faith efforts in contacting previous employers. 

Don't forget to like, subscribe, and check out the free Canadian driver file checklist mentioned in episode one!

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:25 Understanding Driver History Checks
00:39 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations
01:05 Best Practices for Canadian Carriers
02:38 Documenting Good Faith Efforts
03:22 Steps to Verify Driver History
05:19 Reporting Non-Responsive Employers
06:31 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!
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Do you need a "Truck Driver Safety Policy?" Get it today! https://safetydawg.com/policy

Transcript

Chris Harris, Safety Dawg 1: 0:00

Welcome to another CVOR and NSC podcast or National Safety Code podcast. Let's manage your safety scores. My name is Chris Harris, Safety Dawg, and let's get into it. We are talking about references, references, or driver history checking. All right, and largely I'm going to be talking about the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations here. Even though I know that this is a Canadian program. And Canadians don't have to follow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. However, most of the insurance companies that provide insurance to trucking companies in Canada think that the FMCS Ours are pretty damn good and they are best practices. So let's go through the U. S. rules and remember that these are best practices, uh, for Canadians. All right. With that, it is, if you want to read the rules, you can read them here at 391. 23. It's under the Investigations and Inquiries into the Driver's Past History. All right. And here's the first thing that it says, or one of the items. that I wish to highlight. An investigation of the driver's safety performance history with the Department of Transportation regulated employers during the preceding three years. So let's translate that. You've got to check three years of history for the drivers. And again, this is a best practice for Canadian carriers to go back and verify The past three years of driving history. That's done by contacting the past employers and of course looking at the driver's motor vehicle record. Uh, make sure you go back those three years. The next thing the U. S. says is a copy of the vehicle records obtained in response to the inquiries. Um, you gotta file them, but look at what it says here. You've got to make a good faith effort to obtain such information. So the only way you can document good faith efforts, or to record good faith efforts, is to do documentation. And the best way nowadays, of course, is email. Get a contact person from the application form and email your written request for references. That would be documentation of a good faith effort. Now, think of it this way. What is a good faith effort? Many people tell me, uh, it's three times. I've got to try three times. I think a good faith effort is a little bit more. Uh, however, three times is not bad by any means. And so what I tell all my clients to do is one is an email, then a follow up phone call after the first email, but document that phone call, write it, record it somewhere, probably on the application that you phoned. And once you've done that, What did you do? You left a message for the safety manager. So the date and the time that you left message. And then a second email. And then again, if no response, a second phone call. Well, that's already four attempts. One email, one message, two emails, another message, and then a third and final email is what I would tell you to do. So that's an opinion. That's five attempts. I certainly think that is reasonable. And look at this. It says right in the Federal Motor Carrier regulations that you've got to document your good faith efforts. So record them. Please do that. And here, I want to highlight, Each motor carrier must make a written record with respect to each previous employer contacted or good faith efforts to do so. Again, they're begging you. to make documentation of your, your efforts to do the reference checks. And then finally, let's look at this here. Failure to contact previous employers or of them to provide the required safety performance information must be documented. So if you reach out and they don't respond, document, document, document. And then look at this. If the employer, the past employer, has a DOT number, in other words, registered in the States, the FMCSRs go one step further and say, Hey, prospective employers should report failures of previous employers to respond to the investigation to the FMCSA and to use the complaint process. process specified in 386. 12 of this chapter. And then keep a copy of those reports in the investigation history file as part of the documentation of your good faith efforts. So there you have it. That, I think, is huge. To say document, document, document. And if you are a DOT carrier and the company that you were requesting the previous history from is also a DOT carrier, you're supposed to report them to FMCSA. So remember that these are Canadian best practices. And if you do go to the States, it is required that you follow these. So that's it for references. Again, thank you so much for listening and watching. This is the CVOR and National Safety Code Manager Safety Scores Podcast. Please click like and subscribe. To this podcast, leave me a comment. What would you like to do? And don't forget in Uh, episode one I asked you or am willing to supply a Canadian driver file checklist for free to you And you do that by texting a number and that's all in Chapter or episode one i'll put a link in the show notes right here to that chapter. So thanks very much. Talk to you soon.