4 minute read
Understanding Clearinghouse Rules Is Essential For Small Trucking Companies
By Cliff Abbott -April 9, 2021 Starting up your own trucking business with your own authority is a big step that adds complexity to your business. Growing your business from a single truck to multiple units adds even more complexity. The management side of the business changes — you now need to provide payroll, insurance and other services for the people who drive for you. One important change you may need to make is your relationship with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse. You may have already registered yourself as a driver; this allows any carriers you drive for to run preemployment and annual queries of your record at the Clearinghouse. Depending on your business model, you may now also need to register as an employer. Whether or not you need to register as an employer hinges on whether you operate under your own authority, using your own Department of Transportation (DOT) number, or under the authority of another carrier. If you’re going it alone, you’ll need to register as an employer, even if you’re the sole driver. If you’re leasing your equipment to another carrier, the employer functions of the Clearinghouse may be handled for you by the carrier, but you’ll need to make sure. Some consortium services are registered with the Clearinghouse and can help handle your registration for you. It’s important to be clear on exactly what services are offered. Carriers have, in the past, failed DOT audits because they incorrectly assumed the consortium they used was performing Clearinghouse duties. While a consortium can conduct a query for you, it can’t purchase a query plan. Before you (or the consortium) can run a query, you’ll need to pay in advance for the number of queries you expect to use in a year. Currently, the cost is $1.25 per query. If you need to register as an employer, go online to clearinghouse.fmcsa.dot.gov and click the “Register” button. You’ll need to have an account set up on login.gov to register. If you have previously registered as a driver, you may already have a login. You’ll need to designate a “Clearinghouse administrator” for your company. If your spouse or someone else handles the paperwork, it can be that person, or it can be yourself. The administrator is the person who makes queries of records and receives the results. You’ll also need to specify the drug and alcohol consortium or third-party administration (C/TPA). If you are leased to a carrier, you and any drivers you hire may be included in the list of names they draw from for random drug and alcohol testing. If you run as your own company and are the only driver, however, you can’t “randomly” draw names from a list of one. A consortium allows your name to be placed in a pool with the names of other drivers and owner-operators to create a large enough group to draw from. Once registered, you’ll need to run queries on any new drivers you hire before they can drive. You’ll also need to run annual queries on every person who drives for you. These queries must be maintained in a file that can be easily accessed by you if your business is audited by the DOT. There are two types of queries — limited and full. Limited queries only tell you if information exists in a driver’s Clearinghouse record. Full queries provide detailed information about violations contained in the record. The cost for either query is the same, $1.25. The biggest difference, however, is the type of driver consent you’ll need to obtain results.
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