Trucking: The DAC Report

or Why You Can’t Abandon the Truck and Expect to Find a New Driving Job

What you do and how you act during your day-to-day driving and during interactions with driving companies makes a difference in your ability to advance in this field and keep the income rolling in. It’s also important to know what future employers see when they are evaluating you as a potential hire. Here’s some basic info about all of this.

How They Know (HireRight)

Transportation companies want to be certain that you are a good hire. They don’t totally rely on interviews or what you tell them about your driving and experience. It is standard procedure for trucking employers to run a background check.

For the trucking industry, background checks are done by HireRight. These reports are called Drive-A-Check (DAC). (DAC rhymes with sack.)

The DAC report is a summary of a driver’s history. It contains information on:

• reasons for leaving the job
• number of accidents
• type of equipment operated (including: sizes and types)
• type of driving done
• if the driver is eligible for rehire
• Social Security number
• driver’s license number
• criminal reports
• whether or not the driver has filed workers compensation claims
• if the driver abandoned the equipment
• criminal history

You are entitled to one free copy of your DAC report every 12 months. If you are uncertain what is on your DAC report, request a free copy. Information on how to get a report is on HireRight’s website.

What You Can or Should Do Regarding Your DAC Report

Basically, you should know what is in your DAC report, and you should make sure every bit of it is correct. Scour the free report to which you are entitled and verify its accuracy. Then:

If Information Is Untrue

HireRight is regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If there is wrong information on your DAC report, you can have it removed. Contact HireRight to get wrong information removed. Do not contact the company that reported the wrong information. Such requests will be ignored by trucking companies; you would be wasting your time.

If Information Is True

If the information is true, you won’t be able to have it removed. Only untrue information can be removed from your report.

There have been cases of drivers getting true information removed from a DAC report due to mitigating circumstances. But the driver had to hire a lawyer, and it cost him or her thousands of dollars.

If Something Is Missing

If something is missing from your DAC report, you are still required to tell your employer (or potential employer) about it. An omission is regarded as a lie.

Example: You are involved in an accident, but it is not listed on your DAC report. If you don’t disclose this on a job application, you have lied on a job application. You can get fired for that. (If you get caught, you almost certainly will get fired for that.)

It is better to be truthful regarding bad things in your driving history, even if it means not getting a specific job. Getting caught will get you fired. Getting fired will be reported in your DAC report, which makes things worse.

What You Can Do to Enhance Your DAC Report

While there is nothing you can do to erase past driving/working mistakes, you can be sure to behave in a manner that looks good on your DAC report. This will make you more likely to get the jobs you want in the future. And at least it will help to balance out any negative parts of your report. Here are a couple of important practices to cultivate:

Leave On Good Terms

Always leave a company on good terms. You might want to return. More importantly, if you leave on bad terms, the company that you are leaving can make comments in your DAC report. Bad comments in your DAC report can make it difficult (or impossible) to get another driving job.

So, do it right:

• Give notice. Two weeks notice if you can. Do not quit suddenly.
• Do not “fail to deliver.” Deliver your last load, and return the truck properly—unless instructed otherwise.
• Do not abandon your truck. Return it to the company terminal—as directed.
• Do not assume that calling the company and telling them where to find the truck is good enough. If you don’t take the truck back to where they want it delivered, you have technically abandoned the truck. If they have to “go get it,” they can (and probably will) report you for abandoning the truck.
• Return everything in good order. Clean everything out. Get the company mechanic to inspect everything and sign off on the equipment return.
• Return tools and miscellaneous gear.

Play Nice

You will encounter frustrating circumstances in truck driving. How you handle these is important. Don’t get angry. Remain calm. Be professional.

You never know what the future holds. You might want to return to an old job. And you definitely don’t want a company to put something in your DAC report that would prevent you from getting a new job. No one wants a person with a “hair-trigger” temper in charge of a big rig!

Additional Information

You’ll want to know all you can about your driving record and what is shared with prospective employers. For more detailed information, take another look at the HireRight website.