Last week we were notified by the Department of Transportation (DOT) they would be here this week to conduct a compliance review. We were told nothing triggered the audit; it was just our time. The last one we had was in 2010. We did okay, but we identified several opportunities to improve. Over the past few years, the motorcoach industry has been under a microscope and we have heard horror stories about audits the DOT is now doing. We heard about huge fines being assessed and read about companies being shut down as a result of problems found during an audit. A DOT audit is like the IRS calling you in for a TAX audit - everything better match up or it is going to cost you money or break you. When the DOT auditor walked in the door this week, he advised that he planned to audit 20 – 25% of our records. He looked at driver’s files, logs, and inspection reports. Then he compared those to bus maintenance records and driver trip reports to see if everything matched up. If the auditor noted a driver reported a light out, he expected to see a service order on file showing when it was replaced. When he looked at trip reports, he would pull anything with a time stamp on it, such as fuel receipts, and then he pulled the driver’s log to see if the driver was on the proper line at the time the coach was fueled. It was scary how detailed the auditor is required to be. We were confident, but nervous, when he called us in to let us know his findings. The officer said from everything he has seen, we are doing a good job. He said he had nothing to report. He went on to say out of the thousands of reviews he has done over his 40-plus year carrier, this was only the third or fourth time he’d been able to give a clean report. Wow! I have to thank every employee at every level for their attention to detail and for the dedication to help make us one of the very best companies in the motorcoach industry.
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 17:53:36 +0000
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