The Truth About Commercial Motor Vehicles

I am going to apologize for this blog before you start to ready it.  This is going to be a ton of facts all thrown at you all at once.  If you make it to the end you are either really interested in DOT or you are one tough dude or dudet. Lol

Let’s start with what is a commercial vehicle? 

The federal government classifies a commercial motor vehicle as any vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of over 10,000lbs that is used in interstate commerce.  Ok now what does that really mean?  Here’s the nuts and bolts, if you use a ¾ ton pickup with a GVWR of 10,000lbs then you shouldn’t fall under federal regulations for commercial motor carriers.  Unless you are transporting Hazardous materials.  What happens if you need to pull a trailer behind that same pickup for business?  Now you need to take the GVWR of the pickup and add the GVWR of the trailer together.  For arguments sake let’s say that the pickup’s GVWR is 10,000lbs and the trailers GVWR is 10,000lbs.  Your new Gross Combined Weight Rating (GCWR) is now 20,000 lbs.  You are now a commercial vehicle and must abide by all federal regulations. 

In order to better understand this lets talk about what commerce is.  The United States Government defines commerce as, “All activities of a commercial or business nature between U.S. citizens.  Commerce is not limited to trade but also involves the communication and travel that goes into facilitating trade.  Domestic commerce is trade that happens between entities in the same state.”  To simplify that statement commerce is the act of trying to make money.  Interstate commerce is when you are trying to make money and cross state lines to do so.  INTRAstate commerce is staying within the same state while conducting business or trying to make money.

Did you get all that?

Ok now we are going to make the water even more muddy!!  States have different laws and regulations about commercial motor vehicles (CMV’s).  Colorado says that if you only operate in INTRAstate commerce you are not a CMV until your GCWR is over 16,000lbs.  New Mexico on the other hand states that you are not a CMV until your GCWR is 26,000lbs.  Utah follows federal regulations and says that as soon as your GCWR is 10,000lbs then you’re a CMV.  Oh my gosh what???  Why do they make it so hard to be in compliance? Why cant they just set one standard and follow that standard?  Yeah I don’t get it either. 

Here is a great example of INTERstate vs INTRAstate and how fast it can change.  Lets say that you start a lawn mowing operation after work and on the weekends.  You are operating in New Mexico and own a ¾ ton pickup (GVWR 10,000lbs) and you use a trailer (GVWR, 6,000lbs) to haul your lawn mowers from house to house.  The state laws if you operate in INTRAstate commerce for NM state that you are not a CMV until you reach the 26,000lbs threshold.  Since your GCWR is only 16,000lbs you are not a commercial vehicle.  Business is going great and you decide that you need to expand in to Colorado.  Your trucks are still parked in NM but you drive to Colorado 2 times a week to mow lawns up there.  Those times that you drive in to Colorado you are now operating in INTERstate commerce and since your GCWR is over 10,000lbs you are now a commercial vehicle. 

Wait isn’t Colorado’s CMV regulation that you are NOT a CMV until your GCWR is over 16,000lbs? and your truck and trailer are exactly 16,000lbs so your under the threshold?  Yes, but since you crossed state lines for work so now you fall under federal regulation that stats that you are a CMV if your GCWR is over 10,000lbs. 

That makes it clear as mud! 

Where can I find my Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR)?  On most trucks and pickups there is a manufactures sticker on the driver side doorframe.  It will have the VIN and the GVWR listed there. Don’t look at one ¾-ton pickup and think that all of them are going to be same.  It completely depends on the vehicle as well as the year of the vehicle.  The manufacture is the one determining what the GVWR of a vehicle is.  On trailers it there is usually a manufactures tag on the tongue or towards the front of the trailer.  If there is no GVWR on the trailer the next best thing is to contact, the manufacture give them the VIN and ask if they can ship you a new manufactures tag that includes the GVWR.  If you can’t do that then you can take the tire rating (usually found on the sidewall of the tire) and add each tires rating together to find out what the capacity of the trailer is. 

A couple key things to remember, before you operate a vehicle for commerce be sure to check the local and state laws for where you are operating.  Any vehicle used to try to make money, crosses state lines, and has a GVWR over 10,000lbs is considered a CMV and must abide by all Federal Motor Carrier Regulations.  Ultimately, you are responsible for what you do, if you choose not to follow state and federal regulation if you are caught in the end you will be the one who is responsible for the fines among other things that might happen. 

If you have any other questions about this please don’t hesitate to reach out to us today!

The Clearinghouse will it really be worth it?

By now most us have at least heard about the NEW clearinghouse that the federal government put into effect on Jan 6^th 2020.  There is a lot of different “facts” floating around out there about this.  Rest assured we are here to help you understand what this is and how it really works.  Let’s not wait any longer to get into all of this excitement.

With one of the transportation acts passed by the Obama administration came the Clearinghouse.  The Clearinghouse is completely new and does not currently take any regulations away from the industry.  In fact, it adds a step for the next 3 years.  Starting January 6^th 2020 if you hire a new CDL driver you must conduct a FULL Query through the clearinghouse and those results must be negative.  If you fail to conduct a query before allowing them to operate a CMV for you then you might be faced with a critical violation in the event of an audit, or even worse in the event of litigation it could be construed as negligence. 

The first thing you need to do is set up your employer account with the Clearinghouse.  It will ask that you tie your portal account to your clearinghouse account.

Wait, what’s a portal account?  Don’t stress if you don’t have a portal account we would be more than happy to help you get one set up.  The first thing you need is your DOT number.  Next grab your DOT Pin number.  Don’t know what that is!  No worries just go to https://cms8.fmcsa.dot.gov/registration/request-pin-number and work through the process.  If you would like help, just let us know we are more than happy to help you. 

Why is this a good thing for industry?  These queries cost $1.25.  That’s pretty cheap, I know that it’s a high price if you’re hiring lots of employees but in the end it will still save you money.  The clearinghouse is going to alleviate the pain of sending out background checks to previous employers for the past 3 years. 

Here’s the details on that.  This year you still have to send out background checks for the past 3 years of employers, then next year you only have to send out background checks for the previous 2 years.  Then the next year 2022, you only have to send out previous background checks for 1 year.  Finally, by 2023 you won’t have to send out the annoying background checks to previous employers.  That’s AWESOME and going to save the industry so much time and effort. 

My opinion is that the government should have opened the clearinghouse up to consortiums and third party administrators for 3 years then had industry start pulling query’s.  But hey, I’m not as smart as the federal government, I’m just a good ole boy trying to make living lol….

There is a difference between a full and partial query.  A full query must be pulled for all NEW drivers prior to operating CMV’s for your company.  Full queries have to be approved by the driver.  If the driver selected email as their primary contact then the clearinghouse will send them an email immediately after a full query is requested.  If the driver does not respond to the query, you cannot allow them to drive for you.  If the results come back with any infractions then as an employer you must ensure that a negative Return To Duty (RTD) has been completed.  If they never completed a RTD then you can allow them to operate CMV’s until a negative RTD is recorded. 

A partial query must be conducted on every driver every year.  You must have a signed release from the employee prior to pulling these.  My suggestion is to tie these to your annual review process.  You can just add this to when you pull MVR’s and the certificate of violations.  If a partial query comes back with any infractions then a full query must be pulled. 

Oh man, that’s a ton of information in a short amount of time.  If you have any questions about the clearinghouse, the FMCSA portal, or shoot if you just want to talk about our other services, don’t hesitate to call us.  We are here to help make sure you are covered when it comes to DOT.

Suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
Romans 5:3-5 NIV

This scripture really touched my heart.  How often when things start to get tough and we start to suffer do we turn to God and say, “What did I do to deserve this” or “I really tried to listen to you, but I feel that I didn’t get the point.”  So often, we turn to God when times are tough to ask him for guidance and to take away our suffering.  The way I take these verses are that it is only through suffering that we can learn perseverance, gain our true charter, and hope so big that we can’t help but be happy.

Wow, that was awesome!

Let’s break down these verses even more.  What is perseverance?  I grew up in the grange where they always prayed for perseverance.  To me perseverance is when you don’t give up.  Angela Duckworth would call it “Grit.”  The ability to stick with something even when things do go as easily as expected.  Faith requires perseverance, being an employee requires perseverance, being the leader requires perseverance, being a parent requires perseverance.  I think you get the point, life requires that we have perseverance, or grit.  Never giving up is huge.  I have been listening regularly to the podcast, “Born to Impact.”  These guys are amazing and constantly talk about what it means to have perseverance.  They use the analogy of a person who hits a rock 99 times and it never breaks, then he swings the 100^th time and the rock breaks open and is full of amazing beauty.  If you don’t have perseverance and gave up at swing 99, you would have never found the true treasure. 

Let’s move on to character.  I consider character to be how we act, and react to every situation that God places in our lives.  Our character is formed by the events that happen for us.  The way we act on those situations shows our true character.  Ill bet that we have been in a situation where our boss was not a a nice guy.  Maybe we gave him a reason not to be nice to us, maybe we didn’t.  the fact is that we don’t like our current situation.  We have the option to allow our character to be one who goes around talking about them behind their backs, or we can bring it up to them and ask how we can fix the situation.  The point here is that our character is what makes the difference.  How is our character formed?  By the situations, God has led us through and our actions during those times.  Character is something that can change over time in everyone.  We have the ability to grow into the person we are truly supposed to be.

Hope!  How would you describe hope?  To me Hope is the ability to have faith that things will turn out great.  Even in those situations where we KNOW beyond any doubt that it will never work out, having faith that it will work out.  Hope is the ability to see the good in others when no one else does.  Hope is the light of the world.  Hope believes that humanity will take the righteous actions.  Hope can be anything you want it to be as long as you believe in it.  Hope is knowing that no matter what God has my life and yours under control.  All we have to do is sit back, work like heck, and trust that God is guiding the ship in the direction he needs it to go. 

The last part of these verses are the hardest for me.  They say that it is only through suffering that we can gain all of these things.  Why are we so, for lack of better words, dumb, that we have to suffer to gain perspective in this?  God knows our path, he knows us before we are even born, he knows us better than we know ourselves.