The new entrant safety audit: what they check and what fails you automatically

The timeline

• A new carrier is in the new entrant program for 18 months.
• By law, FMCSA has to complete the safety review within 12 months after a property carrier begins operations (120 days for motorcoach operators).
• It can come sooner. A positive drug test, a driver without a valid CDL, running without the required insurance, running a vehicle placed out of service, or a 50%+ out-of-service rate over at least three inspections in 90 days can trigger an expedited audit.

What they look at

Area	What you need to show
Drivers	A complete driver qualification file for every driver: application, MVRs, road test or CDL equivalent, medical certificate, annual review.
Drug & alcohol	A testing program in place — consortium enrollment, pre-employment test results before anyone drives, random testing, Clearinghouse queries.
Hours of service	Records of duty status (ELD records) for your drivers, and supporting documents.
Vehicles	Periodic (annual) inspections, repair and maintenance records, driver vehicle inspection reports with defects fixed.
Insurance	The required financial responsibility, in force.
Crashes	An accident register, even if it is empty.

The 16 violations that fail you automatically

Any one of these is an automatic failure, no matter how good everything else looks:

1. No alcohol and/or controlled substances testing program.
2. Using a driver known to have an alcohol concentration of 0.04 or greater.
3. Using a driver who refused a required test.
4. Using a driver known to have tested positive for a controlled substance.
5. No random testing program.
6. Knowingly using a driver without a valid CDL.
7. Allowing a driver to operate on a CDL or permit that a state has disqualified.
8. Allowing a disqualified driver to drive a CMV.
9. Operating without the required minimum insurance.
10. Operating a passenger vehicle without the required minimum insurance.
11. Knowingly using a disqualified driver.
12. Knowingly using a physically unqualified driver.
13. Not requiring drivers to keep a record of duty status (failure at 51% or more of records checked).
14. Operating a vehicle declared out of service before it is repaired.
15. Not fixing out-of-service defects a driver reported.
16. Using a vehicle that has not been periodically inspected (failure at 51% or more of vehicles checked).

If you fail

• You get a deadline to send a corrective action plan: 60 days for most property carriers, 45 days for hazmat and passenger carriers.
• Miss it, and FMCSA revokes your new entrant registration and issues an out-of-service order.
• For the standard 60-day track, an extension of up to 60 more days is possible if you are making a good-faith effort.

A short checklist before the audit

• Enroll in a drug and alcohol consortium before your first driver drives, and keep the pre-employment result.
• Build a driver file for yourself too, if you drive your own truck.
• Keep the annual inspection report for every truck and trailer.
• Keep an accident register from day one.
• Keep your insurance in force without a gap. A lapse is an automatic failure and it also shuts down your authority.