Effective date: January 1, 2024. These terms govern your use of fleetdocusa.com, operated by FleetDoc USA LLC, 10 Exchange Place, Suite 1200, Jersey City, NJ 07302, USA ("FleetDoc," "we," "us"). Read them. They're shorter than most, and every sentence is here for a reason.
1. Acceptance of These Terms
By using this website, you accept these terms in full. That's the whole mechanism — there's no account to create, no checkbox to click, no signature. Using the site is the acceptance, the same way walking into a shop means you're under the roof rules. If you don't accept these terms, the remedy is simple: don't use the site. We may update these terms from time to time. The current version always lives at this address with its effective date at the top, and material changes are noted on our corrections log. Continued use after a change means you accept the updated terms.
2. Informational Content Only — Not Legal Advice
This is the most important section on this page, so we'll say it twice in different words.
First: everything on this site is general educational and informational content about commercial motor carrier compliance. Nothing here is legal advice, tax advice, insurance advice, or a substitute for consultation with a licensed attorney, CPA, or insurance professional who knows your specific operation. Reading this site does not create an attorney-client relationship, a consulting engagement, or any other professional relationship between you and FleetDoc USA LLC.
Second, plainer: we're fleet people who did the homework, not your lawyers. When a DOT officer is writing a citation, or an auditor is sitting in your office, or a state is assessing penalties, "a website said so" is not a defense. Before you act on anything you read here — filing deadlines, fee amounts, insurance minimums, record retention requirements — verify it against the primary source: FMCSA regulations at fmcsa.dot.gov, the current CFR, the IRS, and your own state DOT, DMV, and revenue department. Rules vary by state, by cargo, by vehicle weight, and by operation type. We cover the general case. Your case is yours.
3. Regulations Change — Figures Are 2024 References
Compliance is a moving target. Fee schedules get revised. Civil penalty amounts are adjusted for inflation annually. Forms get renumbered. Filing portals migrate. Every dollar figure, deadline, threshold, and requirement on this site reflects the best available information as of its last review date, and the baseline figures across the site are 2024 references. We review and update pages on a rolling schedule and log substantive changes publicly, but we do not guarantee that any page reflects a change published last Tuesday by a state revenue department.
So treat our numbers as a starting point that's usually right, not a finish line that's guaranteed current. If a fine amount matters to a decision you're making, pull the current schedule from the agency itself. If you find we've gone stale on something, tell us via the contact page — corrections from readers are how this site stays sharp.
4. Intellectual Property
The content of this site — the text, the checklists, the tables, the cost-per-mile model, the page design, and the FleetDoc USA name and logo — is the property of FleetDoc USA LLC and is protected by United States copyright and trademark law. All rights are reserved except as stated in the permitted-use section below. The underlying facts — regulations, statutes, fee schedules, government forms — belong to no one and everyone; our copyright covers our expression, arrangement, and analysis of them, not the facts themselves.
5. Permitted Use
We built this to be used, so the permissions are generous:
- Read anything, as often as you want, free, forever.
- Print any page for use in your own operation. Hand the pre-trip checklist to your drivers. Tape the IFTA calendar to the dispatch wall. That's the point.
- Link to any page from your own site, your newsletter, or a forum thread. No permission needed, no deep-linking nonsense.
- Quote brief excerpts — a paragraph or two — with a clear credit and a link back to the source page.
What you may not do:
- Republish full pages or substantial portions on another website, in a paid product, or in training materials you sell, without our written permission.
- Present our content as your own work, with or without edits.
- Scrape the site at a volume or rate that degrades service for other visitors, or use automated tools to harvest the content for redistribution.
- Use the FleetDoc USA name or logo in a way that suggests we endorse your product, service, or operation. We don't do endorsements.
For republication or licensing requests, write to research@fleetdocusa.com. We say yes more often than you'd expect, especially to safety departments and driver-training programs.
6. Third-Party Services
The office conditions widget on some pages fetches weather data from the Open-Meteo API, and your browser contacts their servers directly to do it. We don't control Open-Meteo and aren't responsible for their availability, accuracy, or policies. A wrong humidity reading is not a compliance risk; treat the widget as the convenience it is. Links on this site to government agencies or other external resources are provided for your convenience — we don't control those sites and aren't responsible for their content or their downtime.
7. Disclaimers
This site is provided "as is" and "as available," with all faults and without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law, FleetDoc USA LLC disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, and non-infringement.
Without limiting that: we do not warrant that the content is current, complete, or error-free; that any filing deadline or fee figure reflects the most recent revision; that following any checklist on this site will produce any particular inspection, audit, or enforcement outcome; or that the site will be uninterrupted, available at any particular time, or free of technical defects. We work hard to be accurate — our sourcing and corrections process is documented on the methodology notes page — but accuracy is a discipline, not a guarantee, and the warranty language above is what "we try hard but can't promise" means in legal terms.
8. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, FleetDoc USA LLC, its members, managers, employees, and contributors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages — including lost profits, lost revenue, lost contracts, fines, penalties, out-of-service orders, authority suspensions, or enforcement costs — arising out of or related to your use of, or inability to use, this site or its content, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Because the site is free and provided without charge, our total aggregate liability to you for any claim arising from or related to the site or these terms will not exceed one hundred U.S. dollars (US $100). Some jurisdictions don't allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so some of the above may not apply to you — in which case our liability is limited to the smallest amount the law allows.
The reasoning here is the same reasoning you'd apply in your own yard: we hand you the checklist for free, but you're the one holding the wrench. The final responsibility for your compliance sits where it has always sat — with the carrier, the driver, and their professional advisors.
9. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless FleetDoc USA LLC from any claims, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of your misuse of the site, your violation of these terms, or your infringement of anyone's rights in connection with your use of the site.
10. Governing Law and Venue
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions. Any dispute, claim, or proceeding arising out of or relating to these terms or your use of this site shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Hudson County, New Jersey, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. If you're reading this from a cab in California or a terminal in Texas, that's still the deal: Jersey law, Jersey venue.
11. Miscellaneous
If any provision of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest remain in force — one bad clause doesn't sink the document. Our failure to enforce any right under these terms isn't a waiver of that right. These terms, together with our privacy policy, are the entire agreement between you and FleetDoc USA LLC regarding the site. There are no side deals, and nobody on our team can amend these terms by email.
12. Contact
Questions about these terms: research@fleetdocusa.com, subject line "Terms question." Postal mail: FleetDoc USA LLC, 10 Exchange Place, Suite 1200, Jersey City, NJ 07302, USA. Phone: +1 (201) 555-0134.