Your crews are exempt from the logs. Not from the rest of DOT.
For utilities and utility contractors running bucket trucks, digger derricks, service rigs and work pickups. A full DOT department that works alongside your safety team, every day.
Your bucket trucks are commercial motor vehicles
Any vehicle or combination rated or weighing 10,001 pounds or more in interstate commerce is a CMV. The rules follow the vehicle, not the industry, and most of a utility fleet is over that line.
- Bucket trucks
- Digger derricks
- Line trucks and pole trailers
- Service and meter trucks
- Water and vac trucks
- Pickups towing equipment trailers
Three things most utility fleets don’t know about their exemption
What the exemption covers, and what it doesn’t
A utility service vehicle is one used to build, repair, maintain or operate the lines and facilities that deliver electric, gas, water, sewer, telephone, cable, broadband or cellular service, operated mostly within the service area.
- Hours of service limits
- Logs and ELDs
- Driver qualification files and medical cards
- Drug and alcohol testing and Clearinghouse queries for CDL drivers
- Daily inspections, repairs and maintenance records
- Annual inspections
- Your accident register
- Roadside inspections on your FMCSA record
Contractors who build and maintain utility lines may or may not fit the definition. It depends on the work and where they operate. That’s one of the questions your free assessment answers for your fleet.
Source: 49 CFR 395.1(n) and 395.2.What DOT still expects from a utility fleet, every month
For a utility fleet of 50 trucks, with no logs counted at all:
What that work actually is
Not a checklist. Every item below takes judgment, a conversation with a driver or a supervisor, and a record that proves it was done.
- Every truck, checked against the exemption. The work it did and where it went, so any day that isn’t utility service gets the hours rules it needs.
- Every driving event, reviewed. Speeding, hard braking and following too close. A habit gets a message, then a call, then you are told, worked for 90 days until it changes.
- Every reported defect, followed. From the driver’s inspection report to the repair, signed off, before the truck goes back out.
- Every new hire, built to complete. Application, 3 years of safety history from every past DOT employer, driving record, medical card, road test, and for CDL drivers the pre-employment drug test and Clearinghouse query, all before the first trip.
- Open items, chased. With drivers, supervisors and shops, until each one is closed.
- Expirations in the next 60 days, renewed. Licenses, medical cards and permits, before anyone is out of status.
- New drivers, moved toward complete. Past employers called back, documents collected, nothing left hanging.
- Random drug and alcohol selections. Run, sent and followed to a result for every CDL driver.
- Your FMCSA record, read. Every new roadside inspection reviewed, safety scores watched, and a DataQs challenge filed when a violation looks wrong.
- Maintenance records, checked. For every truck and every trailer, because the records are what an investigator asks for.
- A report for leadership. What was done, what was found, and what’s next.
- Annual inspections. Every truck and every trailer, each one on its own date.
- Annual driver reviews and records checks. Every driver, every year, plus the yearly Clearinghouse queries.
- Registrations and filings. Plates, registrations, UCR, heavy vehicle use tax and your USDOT update, each on its own deadline.
- The insurance renewal package. Three years of inspections, drivers and trucks, pulled together 60 days before renewal.
- A mock DOT audit. Run the way an investigator would, so the real one isn’t the first.
You keep the crews and the job sites. We take DOT.
- OSHA and job-site safety
- Crew training and toolbox talks
- Storm response and incident response
- The relationship with your crews
- Every driving event reviewed, and drivers coached
- Every driver file, complete before the first trip
- Drug and alcohol testing for CDL drivers
- Maintenance and inspection records, truck by truck
- Renewals, filings and permits (Core + Operations)
And a monthly report you can hand to leadership: what was done, what was found, and what’s next. PFM is that department, for less than hiring the same team.
Everything we can take off your plate
Take the whole department, or start with the part that hurts most. Here’s what each person on your team actually does, and what each add-on covers.
Core Compliance: three specialists, every working day
Starts with a baseline review of where you really stand, run like a mock audit, and a written action plan. After that: your monthly compliance report with your safety score priorities, a quarterly review of what changed and what is at risk, and a yearly mock DOT audit done the way an investigator would.
Makes the judgment calls: confirms every new driver’s file is complete before you put them on the road, decides what happens after an accident, and tells you when something hard needs your attention. Runs every driver’s annual review and driving record check, and gives every filing a final look before it goes out under your name.
Reads every driver’s hours from your ELD every business day: driving limits, the 30-minute break, the 60/70-hour cycle, short-haul limits, unassigned driving and form errors. Decides each finding, a real violation, an allowed exemption or a log that needs a correction, and works the correction through with the driver.
Coaches by behavior: a message the first time, a call the second, and you are told the third time in 90 days. Keeps the supporting documents an auditor asks for, and checks the miles behind your fuel tax and registration filings.
Builds and keeps every driver qualification file: the application, 3 years of safety history from every past DOT employer, license, medical card, driving record and road test. Runs your drug and alcohol program for CDL drivers: Clearinghouse queries, random selections, post-accident testing decisions and follow-up when a result needs action.
Reviews every speeding and harsh-driving event and coaches the driver behind it, follows every reported defect until it is repaired, reviews every roadside inspection and challenges inaccurate violations through DataQs, and prepares the safety side of your insurance renewal.
A training lesson with every coaching step, at three levels, starting with the first message to a driver. Unfinished training gets reminders, then you’re told. A refresher for every driver twice a year, a quarterly safety webinar, and your clean drivers named in your monthly report, so the habits you want are taught and noticed, not just corrected.
Core + Operations: everything in Core, plus a Compliance Admin
Files everything on time and checks it before it is filed: quarterly fuel tax from every fuel purchase matched to its truck, weight-distance taxes in the states that charge them, apportioned registration, UCR, heavy vehicle use tax, plates and your USDOT update. Gets trip, temporary, oversize and overweight permits before the load leaves.
Keeps maintenance records and coordinates with your shops, so we know the health of every truck and trailer. Runs your insurance renewal as a 90-day project: records gathered, one package to your agent 60 days out, and the new papers checked against your trucks and drivers. Handles new driver paperwork and adding or removing a truck.
Add-ons: more of what your fleet needs
A 15-minute safety check-in call with every driver, every quarter. A 30-day plan that starts the second time a behavior shows up, not the third, whether it’s safety driving or hours of service, with a weekly call with the driver, a lesson each week and a final test. A monthly lesson for every driver, picked from their own driving, and their own safety scorecard on their phone. A new-driver safety course in each new driver’s first 30 days. The full rewards program, from driver of the month to clean-driving milestones at 90, 180 and 365 days. A private quarterly safety meeting for your own drivers, tips and training for your managers, supervisors and dispatchers, and a driver-by-driver safety report you can hand an insurer.
The same defect showing up on the same truck, and brakes, tires and lights trending the wrong way, caught early. Each truck’s lifetime cost to keep running, its repairs, downtime and cost per mile, tracked so you know when it’s time to consider replacing it. A quarterly vehicle health and replacement planning review, so you can plan the next truck instead of being surprised by it.
Your team on call Saturdays and Sundays, and outside business hours, for the questions and problems that can’t wait until Monday.
Your drivers paid on schedule, by the same team that already knows their hours.
See where your fleet stands before an investigator does
About 15 minutes on the phone, and you get a 12-page report on your gaps.
Book your free DOT Compliance Assessment
