The FMCSA Audit Survival Guide

> A letter from FMCSA is already scheduled for your first year with a USDOT > number - the New Entrant Safety Audit. And for everyone else, sooner or > later, a letter comes. Most carriers meet it unprepared. Not because > they're careless: because nobody ever taught them the paperwork side of > trucking. > > This book teaches it. Written for the person who handles compliance on > top of two other jobs - the owner at the kitchen table, the office > manager who also runs payroll, the dispatcher who got the binder - it > builds, chapter by chapter, the system that turns a federal document > request into a walk to a shelf: > > - The four kinds of letters FMCSA sends, and exactly what to do in the > first 48 hours after each one > - The driver qualification file an auditor pulls first - built page by > page, with a complete filled-in example > - A drug-and-alcohol testing program that's real and provable, not just > a certificate in a drawer > - Hours of service your ELD can't fix on its own, and the monthly > self-audit that catches what it misses > - Maintenance files that prove the truck was maintained - including one > unit's complete file, shown end to end > - Roadside inspections, audit day itself, and what to do when the report > comes back and it isn't clean > - A 90-day plan, threaded through every chapter, that makes the whole > company audit-proof by default > > Every task comes with an honest time estimate. Nothing requires you to > buy software or hire a consultant. Rules current as of July 30, 2026 - > and the book tells you the date of its snapshot so you always know how > old your copy is. > > Chad Griffith has run compliance from the operator's side, as COO of an > autonomous trucking company and director of operations for a > thirty-plus-aircraft FAA Part 135/145 operation. This is the book he > couldn't hand people when they needed it.