For motor carriers, fleets, brokers and owner-operators
A roadside inspection finds one expired medical card. The truck is out of service and the load isn't moving.
The driver is placed out of service on the shoulder of an interstate. The load is late, the customer is told why, and the violation goes on your safety record where every broker and insurer can see it. The medical card had expired eleven days earlier. It was in a folder in the cab, and the date was in nobody's calendar.
What runs out, and on what clock
- DOT medical certificates
- Valid at most 24 months, often less. One per driver; an expired card means the driver is not qualified to drive a CMV that day.
- CDLs and endorsements
- The license itself, plus hazmat endorsements on a five-year cycle with their own TSA threat assessment.
- Annual vehicle inspections
- Every commercial vehicle needs a periodic inspection at least every 12 months, with the sticker or report on the truck.
- Registrations and filings
- UCR every year, IRP cab cards and IFTA licenses every year, the MCS-150 biennial update — each with its own deadline and its own penalty for lateness.
- Insurance on file with FMCSA
- When a policy is cancelled and no replacement filing arrives, FMCSA revokes operating authority after a short notice period. Brokers and shippers require their own certificates on top.
- Driver files and Clearinghouse queries
- An annual query in the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse for every driver, an annual motor-vehicle record review, and the rest of the driver qualification file.
What it costs when one of them lapses
- Out-of-service orders on the roadside: a stopped load, a late delivery and a customer who now knows why.
- Violations on your CSA record that raise your insurance renewal and make brokers pass on your trucks.
- Operating authority revoked over a missed insurance filing — every truck parked until it is reinstated.
- Fines and back-fees for late UCR, IRP and IFTA, and the audit that late filings invite.
What Lapseline does about it
- Drop in the PDF or a phone photo; Lapseline reads the dates
- Expiry date, issue date, issuer, holder and the certificate number are extracted from the document. Scans are OCR'd on our own servers and sensitive numbers are redacted before any AI model sees the text.
- You confirm, then it reminds you — at 90, 60, 30 and 7 days, and once more if it lapses
- Every extracted date carries a confidence score and is tracked only after you confirm it. Renew a document and the whole reminder cycle re-arms for the new date.
- Owner-operators and partner carriers upload their own documents through a private link
- No account, no software to learn on their side: they open the link, upload a PDF or photo, and you see a live rollup of who is compliant, who is expiring, and who has not sent anything.
- Every Federal Register document is checked against your profile
- About a hundred documents a day. Describe your business once — industry, keywords, the agencies and CFR parts that regulate you — and the rules, proposed rules and notices that match it appear on your Regulations page with a one-line reason.
An assistant, not a guarantee: every date is shown with a confidence score and tracked only after you confirm it, and renewals are still verified with the issuer.
Questions people in this trade ask
- Can I track dates per driver and per truck?
- Yes. Each document is its own item with its own holder — a driver's medical card, a truck's inspection report, the fleet's UCR — and the dashboard shows what is active, expiring and expired across all of them.
- Does it connect to FMCSA or the Clearinghouse?
- No. It tracks the dates on the documents you upload or enter and reminds you before they lapse. Queries, filings and renewals are done with FMCSA and your state as they are today.
- Do I have to type the dates in by hand?
- Only if you want to. Upload the certificate as a PDF or a photo and the dates, issuer and number are extracted for you to confirm. You can also add a deadline by hand — a bid due date, a renewal you have not received the paper for yet — and it joins the same reminder schedule.
- Are the renewal cycles on this page exact for my state?
- No. Cycles differ by state, county and issuer, and they change. The values here are the common federal or typical ones, quoted to show how many separate clocks a business runs on. Lapseline tracks whatever date is on the document you upload; confirm the rule itself with the issuer.
- Does Lapseline guarantee I will never lapse?
- No, and be wary of anyone who says otherwise. Lapseline is an assistant: it reads your documents, shows you every date with a confidence score, tracks what you confirm, and reminds you on a schedule. Renewing is still your job, and you should verify renewals with the issuer.
Find out which of yours expires first.
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