Stop 3 of 4 · File your trucks

File your trucks: vehicle files, inspections, and hours.

Running both? Follow the CDL track, which covers everything, and scope by unit as you go: the testing program covers anyone who ever drives a CDL vehicle, IFTA and IRP follow the trucks over 26,000 lbs, and your lighter trucks' drivers may qualify for short-haul time records instead of an ELD.

Every truck gets a file, an inspection schedule, and a logging device from the registered list. Start these the day the truck starts working: auditors ask for maintenance history, and a file that begins the week before the audit tells its own story.

1. 3.1Start a file and a maintenance schedule for every vehicle.

   Same idea as the driver folder: one folder per truck — paper, computer, or a vehicle record in your Dotra account. In it lives the truck's identity, a written maintenance schedule, and every repair receipt from here on.

   1. 1Make the folder and write the basics on page one: make, model, year, VIN, and tire size.
   2. 2Write down a maintenance schedule — as simple as “oil and full chassis check every 10,000 miles, brakes checked every service.” By miles or by months, whichever fits how you run. The rule wants it written and followed, not fancy.
   3. 3From now on, every service and repair receipt goes in the folder. Keep records one year, and six months after the truck leaves your fleet.

   Save this: The unit folder with the written schedule inside.

2. 3.2Get the annual DOT inspection.

   Once every 12 months, each vehicle needs a full DOT inspection by a qualified inspector. Most truck repair shops do them — it's a standard service.

   1. 1Call a truck or diesel shop and ask for a “DOT annual inspection” (they may call it a periodic or federal inspection). Trailer included, if you pull one — it needs its own.
   2. 2The shop gives you an inspection report and usually a sticker on the truck. Keep the report 14 months, so it always overlaps the next one.

   Cost: Shop rates vary — usually the price of about an hour of shop time, per unit.

   Save this: The inspection report, into the vehicle folder.

3. 3.3Have drivers write up defects at the end of the day.

   A DVIR (driver vehicle inspection report) is the end-of-day write-up — but a report is only required for days a defect is actually found. The rhythm to build: driver finds something, driver writes it up, you fix it and certify the fix before the truck rolls again.

   1. 1Give each driver a DVIR pad (truck stops sell them) or use an electronic one — e-signed DVIRs are explicitly allowed.
   2. 2Found a defect? Driver notes it and signs. You get it repaired, and whoever certifies the repair signs the same report.
   3. 3Keep DVIRs three months. No defect, no report needed — but the habit of the daily walk-around is what keeps you off the roadside out-of-service list.

   Save this: The DVIRs and repair certifications, into the vehicle folder.

4. 3.4Handle roadside inspection reports the right way.

   Sooner or later a driver gets inspected at a scale or roadside stop and hands you the report afterward. What you do next is itself a rule.

   1. 1Fix every violation on the report within 15 days, and keep proof of the fix stapled to it.
   2. 2Keep the report 12 months. Some states ask you to return a signed copy — check the report itself for instructions from that state.

   Save this: Every roadside report and its repair proof.

5. 3.5Install an ELD from FMCSA's registered list.

   An ELD is the logging device that records driving hours automatically. It must come from FMCSA's registered list — check the list before you buy, because devices that get revoked come off it, and running one is a violation from that day.

   1. 1Open the registered list and pick a device. The well-known names run $100 to $300 for hardware plus a monthly subscription; the vendor ships it and it plugs into the truck's diagnostic port.
   2. 2Create each driver's account in the vendor's app, and decide two settings up front: whether drivers may use “personal conveyance” and “yard moves.” Write down what you decided.
   3. 3Put three things in every cab: eight days of blank paper logs (truck stops sell the books), the sheet showing how to transfer logs to an officer, and the malfunction instructions. Your ELD vendor supplies both sheets. (The full operator's manual no longer has to ride along, as of July 2026.)
   4. 4Keep supporting documents — fuel receipts, dispatch records, bills of lading — for six months. They're how an auditor checks the logs are honest.

   Where: FMCSA registered ELD listCost: Roughly $100–$300 for the device, plus a monthly plan.

   Save this: The cab packet, driver account settings, and six months of supporting documents.

Dotra is a tool, not your compliance department. The duty to comply sits with the motor carrier under 49 CFR, and it doesn’t transfer to a vendor, a consultant, or a software product. This road is general information about federal requirements, not legal advice: state obligations aren’t covered, hazmat, passenger, and intrastate-only operations carry requirements it doesn’t address, and rules change. Verify anything that matters at fmcsa.dot.gov before you rely on it.