Who is responsible for an owner-operator's compliance with the federal safety regulations?

• An owner-operator may be leased onto a motor carrier or they may be the motor carrier.
• Owner-operators leased to a carrier operated under the carrier’s authority and USDOT number.
• The motor carrier is always responsible for compliance with the federal safety regulations.

With owner-operators, there are two potential situations that can be encountered:

1. An owner-operator is leased onto a motor carrier.
   • The freight is hauled under the carrier’s authority, the truck displays the carrier’s U.S. DOT number, and the required insurance is the carriers. In this case, the carrier is responsible for the safe operation of that vehicle, including the driver’s (owner-operator’s) compliance with the federal safety regulations. This includes keeping a proper driver qualification file, ensuring hours of service compliance, drug and alcohol testing, vehicle maintenance, etc.
2. An owner-operator is a motor carrier.
   • The freight is hauled under the owner-operator’s authority, the truck displays the owner-operator’s U.S. DOT number, and the freight is covered by the owner-operator’s insurance. In this case, the owner-operator is the motor carrier. The carrier/owner-operator must ensure that all the federal safety requirements are followed.

The USDOT number is used by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the States to identify motor carriers and monitor their safety performance. Owner-operators leased to a carrier operate under the carrier’s authority and USDOT number. There is no need for the owner-operator to have a separate USDOT number unless the owner operator will also operate as a carrier under their own authority.

The FMCSA eliminated “registrant-only” USDOT numbers that were part of the Performance and Registration Information Systems Management (PRISM) program. The FMCSA developed the concept of a registrant only USDOT number to identify registered owners of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) that are not motor carriers but lease their CMVs to entities that are motor carriers. The FMCSA discovered that those USDOT numbers were being used differently from what the agency intended.

The motor carrier is always responsible for compliance with the federal safety regulations. The real question is: who is the motor carrier? In order for the leased to be the responsible carrier, the entity hiring the driver would either need to be a shipper/private carrier or a broker.