VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
  Hey insiders, welcome to another issue of digital display insiders bonus video, where we're digging deeper into the D O T and how that's going to affect your business. As a mobile digital billboard operator. Now I want to thank you again for your support and just thank you for watching these videos. If you find this information helpful, please hit the like button below this video.

So it will tell me if I'm producing content that you like. So again, thank you for your support and let's go on ahead and dive into this week's bonus video. Now the DOT this is something that most people don't realize that it needs to be part of their planning until oftentimes it's too late or after they get into the business.

And they've run into some issues. One thing that you have to remember, and this is all part of the article, is that if your chassis, the vehicle part of your truck, if that's rated by the manufacturer of 10, 001 pounds or higher, or if the actual weight of the truck is that same weight, 10, 001 pounds or higher, if either one of those two things are true, then you have to register for a USDOT number.

Now, this is crucially important because if you get into this business, you start operating a truck. And your truck needs to have a DOT number. And it doesn't at some point, if you're ever involved in any type of an accident if you're traveling outta town and you get pulled over pulled into a way scale, or if you just get pulled over by a carrier enforcement, highway patrol officer and they run and find that you're not complying with this, the fines are huge and it's not something that you want to get into.

So it's better to come outta the gate and be in compliance. And know everything you need to know from the start. So I just want to walk through a couple of things here. Whether you need to do this or not, and that way you can make the best decisions for your business. Now, as I mentioned earlier, you have those two factors your actual weight or the registered weight of the vehicle, if either of those are over 10, 001 pounds and you have to get into DOT.

Now, what does that actually mean? The DOT has a wide range of regulation. And for the most part, you're going to be treated like a trucking company. Now, because these trucks are under 26, 000 pounds, you're not going to have the full blown compliance requirements that a full trucking company that's running the big rigs is going to have.

But there's still a number of things that you have to have. First of all is You have to put a D. O. T. number on the truck. You have to register with the U. S. D. O. T. It's a free process and you can get the number but you have to put that name that number on there along with your company name And the city of state where you're located you're going to have your drivers run medical cards.

So every two years they have to go get a physical and have a medical card on their person. Anytime they're driving the truck they're, you're going to be subject to hours of operation. It's called HOS or hours of service. Your drivers can only operate a certain number of hours each day. If they're running under a hundred miles or if they're going over that, they actually have to keep actual And in today's world, you have to have electronic logging systems in your truck.

You have to have a driver qualification files. So every single person that's going to drive that vehicle has to have an official file that has all kinds of different requirements, such as a pre pre hiring driver inspection, where you have to go out and do a driver's test. The medical card there's just all these different things that you have to have in their driver qualification file.

And anybody that drives that truck. Has to have one of those files on hand and there's numerous other things that you have to have, but those are just the highlights and it's just a it's a lot of work to stay in compliance and every company that goes through a D. O. T. Process of getting the number at some point, you're going to get an audit and if you don't have everything in check, then the fines that can come with that it's almost equivalent to going through an I.

R. S. Audit. When they do these audits, they don't do them free of charge and they will find something that you're in violation of, and it's not a matter of if you get fined, it's how big is that check going to be that you write. The best thing is just to be 100 percent in compliance and make sure that you're doing everything you need to do.

Now, the easiest way to not have to deal with any of this is to buy an LED truck that does not require a license. The dot under 10, 000 pounds and really on the market today. There's not a lot of options for that. Like I said most One ton chassis and above are in that dot category. There's only a few trucks out there that aren't and so I know Some of the trucks that you see the shorter ones, so I believe they're running like a six by ten side screen that are on like three quarter ton chassis Those are probably going to be okay, but you're going to have a smaller truck.

As far as I know the trucks that we build at legion led trucks, we special order those chassis from Ford to be at 9, 950 pounds rated weight. And so they're under that our actual weight is under the 10, 000 pounds as well. And we're running the 6x13 screens, so as far as I know right now our trucks are the only ones with screens of that size that have that that don't require that DOT.

A lot of the chassis out there they're registered at 10, 300 or 10, 600, so they're just barely over that. But at 10, 001 pounds, it doesn't matter if you're 10, 002 pounds, then you're into DOT. And I hope this makes sense. If you have any questions or if I haven't covered anything that you're specifically have questions about, feel free to reach out to me either through comments below, or you can send me an email at jerry at led trucks.com and I'll make sure and respond to those. So again, thank you for your support and we will see you next week.

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