Motus Suffers Technical Glitches, Enforcement Delayed
Motus is the new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) registration system. According to its own website, “Motus streamlines the registration process, enabling entities to submit required information, update records, and comply with federal regulations. It aims to improve safety oversight and data accuracy for the trucking industry.” However, there have been some hiccups that have been material enough that the FMCSA is not punishing fleets for not fulfilling the data entry requirements just yet.
Details
There have been numerous technical glitches in Motus that led to real world issues, such as the database stating a higher insurance requirement than actually required, but perhaps the biggest one is that it occasionally deletes files without warning. One such incident happened to River Oaks Couriers, when it was found that the system had deleted a process agent designation (Form BOC-3), then reported that because it was missing a BOC-3, that the truck in question was not allowed within regulations to leave the weigh station.
“Oklahoma completely understands what’s happening based on what the driver said,” said president of River Oaks Couriers Kevin Clark, “but they’re not willing to go ahead and let us roll, knowing that we’re marked inactive because we don’t have a BOC-3 agent, even though there’s a BOC-3 agent listed in the box.”
Because Oklahoma’s Department of Transportation did not want to be held liable for letting a suspended truck drive away, the vehicles was a sitting duck until the issue was sorted out, and the company for which they were delivering was likely very angry.
Conclusion
So what does all of this mean for you, the driver and/or fleet owner? It is a bit of a rock and a hard place: the FMCSA wants people to migrate their data over to Motus, but run the risk of having files purged and state Departments of Transportation forbidding a truck from moving forward. Perhaps the best course of action is a compromise: backing up the data somewhere that is easily accessible before entering it into Motus. That way, any confusion from technical errors can be cleared up in hours rather than days.
While the simple route would be to just not enter data into Motus until all problems are resolved, it is hard to say when the FMCSA will flip the switch on punishing fleets for not having their data in the system, and as such it is better to have it in there and have a backup file in case of an accident.
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