What is a DOT Report?

In this article

• Summary
• History
• Insights
• Crashes
• Inspections
• Violations

Summary

The summary page shows an overall view of the motor carrier’s current operational, safety and insurance characteristics.

Out of Service Rates
The motor carrier’s out of service rates are shown for vehicles, drivers, and hazmat violations. If there is an out of service rate above the national average, it will be highlighted in red.  You can hover over any OOS rates to see the current national average in comparison to this particular motor carrier and view the basic safety categories that contribute to that particular OOS rate.

ISS Score
The Inspection Selection System Score is commonly referred to as an ISS score. The potential results range from a green “Pass” to a yellow “optional” to a red “Inspect” score. The ISS score is derived from the motor carrier's percentile rankings in key safety categories, especially unsafe driving, hours-of-service, and crash history. It functions as a decision aid for inspectors and police officers to determine inspection frequency and priority based on safety risk. Hovering over the score will indicate which BASIC safety category is contributing to the current score.

Audit Results
Audit results are calculated for all carriers as Satisfactory, Conditional, Unsatisfactory, or Not Rated if insufficient audit data exists to formulate an audit result.  If an audit has been performed by the FMCCSA, the date of that audit and it’s results will appear when you hover over the rating.

Accident Rate
An accident rate will show as either unsatisfactory, satisfactory, or not rated if the motor carrier has insufficient data to calculate an accurate accident rating. Hovering over the result will display the current accident rate and underlying information used to calculate it. A high accident rate can trigger an FMCSA review or intervention, potentially leading to safety audits, fines, or other corrective actions if issues aren't addressed.

Company Snapshot
The company snapshot section highlights the most relevant information from the motor carrier's insurance filings and MCS-150 forms. The motor carrier's maximum radius is calculated each month using inspection data from the past 2 years. The first time that this motor carrier was granted an authority is also shown. The motor carrier's current cargo list from their latest MCS-150, also referred to as commodities, are listed here as well. If the motor carrier has any particularly alarming characteristics, you’ll see those appear in the “alerts” section.

BASIC Scores
All seven of the BASIC scores are shown. If any score exceeds the FMCSAs alert threshold that threshold line will appear in red. This indicates that the motor carrier is “in alert” for that particular BASIC category.  

Expired and New Violations
Any violations that dropped from the motor carrier’s score within the past 30 days will appear in the Expired Violations section. In a similar fashion, any violations newly acquired within the past 30 days will appear in the New Violations section.

Positive and Negative Trends
The DOT Report tracks both positive and negative trends over the previous 2 years. This allows the discovery of both deteriorating and improving behavioral tendencies that are impacting the motor carrier’s BASIC scores.

History

The History page allows you to explore the motor carrier’s BASIC scores over the past 2 years so that you can identify both improvements and deteriorations in their safety scores.

You can see the motor carrier's insurance history along with the operational characteristics of mileage, and number of tractors, trailers, drivers and owner operators reported on their previously submitted MCS-150 forms.

Insights

The insights tab considers all relevant violations from the past 2 years and reveals who the top score contributors are per driver, per tractor, or per trailer, or combined for an overall view. For example, if a VIN is contributing 12% of this motor carrier’s violations, the absence of that 1 truck would have reduced the BASIC scores by a corresponding 12%.  

The top violations breakdown takes each of the BASIC safety categories and filters them into their relevant categories and groups. You can view this breakdown for each of the BASIC safety categories; hours of service, control substances, vehicle maintenance, driver fitness, and hazmat.

Crashes

The crashes page displays all relevant crashes within the past 2 years on a map for easy geographic identification. From the table you can review information such as if a vehicle was towed away from the crash, any injuries, or any fatalities. If needed, you can search for a particular VIN to show all crashes related to that VIN. Any crash that has been removed via the dataq process will show a dataq icon. Keep in mind that crashes removed via the dataq process are not included in the motor carrier's BASIC score calculations. 

Inspections

The inspections page also uses both a map and table, similar to the crashes page. The table highlights both Out of Service and Clean inspections for quick identification. You can review information about the vehicle that was inspected, along with the BASIC safety categories that were assessed by the DOT or police officer during the inspection. A checkbox means that the category was assessed while the dash indicates that it was not assessed.

Violations

The violations page has a layout similar to both crashes and inspections. It shows all violations currently weighted against the motor carrier’s BASIC safety scores along with the corresponding vehicle information, location of occurrence, BASIC group, BASIC category and total points. Out of service violations are highlighted for quick identification. Any violation that has been removed via the dataq process will show a dataq icon. Keep in mind that violations removed via the dataq process are not included in the motor carrier's BASIC score calculations.