Tools of the UCR Trade - Part 6

Unregistered Carriers on 10/08/2009 - 1881
Unregistered Carriers on 10/09/2009 - 1868

New USDOT Carrier Solicitation
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I know that people are tired of hearing me talk about this, but I still believe that States that monitor, solicit and CAUSE new USDOT carriers do better at UCR. Wait a minute, Dave, did you say "cause" new USDOT carriers? Yep, that's what I said! Let's talk about that for a minute. Some UCR agencies are really lousy - at least if you look at the registration percentages - at registering new USDOT carriers. Other UCR agencies are very good. Others still have very small numbers of new USDOT carriers.

Consider these factors:

If your state doesn't enforce UCR on the road, I'm betting that you are not going to discover a lot of carriers who need, but don't have, USDOT numbers. What's the connection to UCR? You've got me - there are thousands of guys who should have USDOT numbers who have been running around for years without being asked for one. That's not a new law - mid-1980's to be exact. This is particularly true for carriers who are exempt from interstate authority. If you do actively enforce the UCR program, for whatever reasons, you will "cause" plenty of new USDOT numbers.

Who looks at carriers between 10K and 26K pounds? IRP and IFTA don't. But if your state does road enforcement, you know there are lots of those guys who need USDOT numbers in that group. You're just not going to find them if you're sitting in the IRP or IFTA office, that's all. But a little road enforcement - and a little word of mouth - will "cause" lots of new USDOT numbers.

And, after you "cause" them to get a DOT number, you register them right on the spot! As I've mentioned in other posts, we actually help carriers get USDOT numbers here in our office because we know that they will also register for UCR before they leave. I need to point out here that we are not restricted to waiting for their USDOT number to show up on SAFER or in the Indiana system as your state may be, but that's just a formality anyway. It just means that you can't finish the registration/upload process until the next day. I can't remember a single instance where we proactively registered a guy and they were stopped before SAFER knew about it. We would, of course, vouch for the guy if that ever happened.

On another note: we are now only 555 registrations behind CA and closing fast!

Have a great weekend!