Help Farmers Get USDOT #'s ?!?! Why???

Unregistered Carriers on 6/10/2009 - 3725
Unregistered Carriers on 6/11/2009 - 3692
Yesterday's Registrations (IL system) - 24 / $2,396 (avg $100)
Deactivations Requested - 7

In our part of the country, we have a lot of farmers - good, decent, hard-working, law-abiding people. Farmers - at least the farmers who haul for-hire interstate - are folks who would have registered with us as "Exempt" carriers prior to UCRA, meaning that they were hauling interstate but they were exempt from the requirement to get a federal authority to do their interstate hauling.

The IL Farm Bureau readily admits that most farmers, under the old (but current) definitions and laws, need to get a USDOT number. In fact, they drafted the document that sits on our Web site telling farmers why they have to do it. Up until now, however, nobody has even asked many of the farmers to get a USDOT number or challenged them at the road. We (the IL Commerce Commission), on the other hand, have registered literally THOUSANDS of farmers with brand-spanking-new USDOT #'s as part of our UCR registration effort.

I could do a whole sideshow on the issue of "Where the heck have the Feds and MCSAP been with regard to the farmers who needed USDOT #'s but didn't have them?"

My point today, however, is that we actually help the farmers get their USDOT#'s. They call in or come in, we get them to the FMCSA Web site and walk them through the registration process. "But that's so time-consuming!", you cry out in utter disbelief. Why do we do it? Three reasons: 1) they need it to be legal, 2) it only takes about 5-10 minutes, and 3) we get at least $39 for our effort - 100% of the time. Is that a good investment of our time? It is using "Dave-math"!