Have you put off updating your Unified Registration System data? Be on the lookout for a letter from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) stating that your Department of Transportation registration number has been deactivated.
On March 4th, the FMCSA revealed that it sent out letters and emails to delinquent trucking companies back in November of 2013, reminding them update their registrations as well as informing them of the deactivation penalty for not complying. URS-- not to be confused with UCR-- is a program that collects carrier fees and disperses them to the states. URS data is required to be updated every other year.
The FMCSA notice stated that the agency would begin deactivating the USDOT numbers of delinquent companies whose updates were due in January of 2014 as soon as March (the agency will continue to deactivate the USDOT numbers of companies who are two months behind). The notice also stated that failure to comply would cost trucking companies $1,000 per day until a maximum of $10,000 is reached.
The USDOT number system makes it easy for trucking companies to remember their filing years-- the last digit in the USDOT number indicates the month to register (1-9 are January - September; 0 is October). Year is determined by the next to last digit in the USDOT number-- odd numbers mean odd number year registration while even numbers indicate even number year registration.
This news comes on the heels of a report on the FMCSA compiled by the Inspector General of the DOT. The report touched on the URS carrier census and stated that the FMCSA needs to bolster its efforts to quantify the number of trucking companies as well as how many trucks they operate. This is in an effort to improve the agency's Compliance, Safety, and Accountability program.