Data-Q response

Discussion in 'Trucking Industry Regulations' started by windsmith, Jan 14, 2013.

  1. windsmith

    windsmith Road Train Member

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    I thought you might be interested in knowing how quickly Data-Q challenges are acted upon once submitted.

    Yesterday (Sunday) I submitted Data-Q challenges on two inspections. One was in MD and the other in VA. The MD challenge was to correct a clerical error where my name was misspelled and my DOB was 10 years off. The VA submission was to challenge the validity of a violation that was charged that is not supported by the written regulations.

    Today I received notification that the MD Data-Q challenge was closed, the corrections made, and a new inspection report issued with the correct information.

    No action on the VA challenge as of yet.
     
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  3. snowwy

    snowwy Road Train Member

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    24 hours.

    that's pretty fast.
     
  4. Scalemaster

    Scalemaster Heavy Load Member

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    As the officer who did the inspection in question, we have a VERY short window of time to respond to any Data-Q. Usually our superiors start screaming if it takes us longer than 2 or 3 days to close one out.
     
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  5. Meltom

    Meltom Road Train Member

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    I encourage(d) the safety manager to challenge anything eLog related if the officer refused to look at the information in truck.
     
  6. windsmith

    windsmith Road Train Member

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    The second open Data-Q was acted upon, and the violation was removed. I will update my other thread with the information.
     
  7. Scalemaster

    Scalemaster Heavy Load Member

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    Thank you for posting a positive experience with a DataQ challenge.

    From the sound of the postings here you would think this kind of thing never happens.
     
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  8. Coolbreeze

    Coolbreeze Light Load Member

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    I submitted a data q challenge, on 12/14/12, for an inspection I got in Georgia. It still shows "open in review", as of today.
     
  9. BigBadBill

    BigBadBill Bullishly Optimistic

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    My attorney sent me data on DQ's and what I found interesting was that over 80% are thrown out because of no supporting documentation for the challenge. Basically, driver saying he didn't do it is not counted as supporting documents. And that 10-12% are reversed or updated. So when you look at the numbers and you have supporting documents it really is a solid system that is taken seriously.
     
  10. windsmith

    windsmith Road Train Member

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    Agreed. This time I felt it was blatantly obvious that the violation was not in line with the regulations, so I simply cited the regulation along with the inspector's findings. If it came back validated, THEN I was prepared to deluge them on the 2nd submission with ABS manufacturers' manuals and any other documentation that I could find that supports the argument that the braking system is fully operational (as designed) even with an ABS fault, and behaves as a pre-ABS system, thousands of which are still in legal operation.
     
  11. Scalemaster

    Scalemaster Heavy Load Member

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    I do not know how accurate those figures are, but it sounds reasonable.

    From the DQ challenges I have received, the vast majority want the inspection assigned to a different carrier USDOT number. Either it involves a household mover who was operating on different authority than his paperwork represented at the time or inspection, or it involves one of those carriers who have several incarnations and several USDOT numbers who try to shuffle all bad inspections to a particular carrier entity.

    The next most frequent type of DQ are the ones from some secretary, or the new safety person, who is under orders from the big boss to pull the files for the last 2 years and DQ everything they can to get violations off their score. Usually when I call to contact the issuer of the DQ they say something like - "Oh, the violation is valid, there is nothing wrong with it. The boss just wanted me to try to get it taken off."

    Another type of DQ is the one where the safety guy challenges the inspection based on the story the driver told them about the inspection. The driver says he was not over hours, or the wheel was not broken, etc. The safety manager is usually quite interested when I send him copies of the drivers log sheets at the time of the inspection and they do not match what was turned in. And the photos of the broken or missing inspection items are usually appreciated by the safety guy too. Somehow the story changes by the time it gets back to the carrier.
     
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