Help!! Company needs safety rating upgrade 385.17 after given "UNSATISFACTORY" rating

Hello everyone! I am new to this forum and seeking some help / advice from any companies/ individuals that have gone through the process of upgrading safety rating from "unsatisfactory" to "satisfactory" status. We are under the section 385.17 process. Our company started its operations approximately 2 years ago, upon starting we did not have much experience in the HOS department and how as a company, to stay on top of all of the safety compliance. In the first year we racked up a large number of violations at the scales and out of services for both vehicle maintenance and driver fatigue hours. The second year of operations was better, less violations and out of services - of course we still had them occur but not to the extent of when we first opened and weren't so careful about it. We run a tough lane - the California Interstate 5 Corridor which consists of CA - OR - WA.

Because the number of violations we had an audit in January of this year. The result of the audit gave us an "unsatisfactory" rating and gave us 60 days to submit how we are cleaning things up and how we will prevent our company from having issues moving forward. We are in contact with the Enforcement Motor Specialist at the FMCSA. They are requesting quite a bit of detailed information from us that we are currently putting together. Hopefully we will be able to put together the right information and get it over to them as soon as possible as we have already gotten a notice from them to cease all operations due to our unsatisfactory rating at the end of the month...

Has anyone here been through this type of situation that could provide some insight to this? Our main issues that we need to tackle are the hours of service and drug / alcohol testing policy.

How long does it take for them to change the safety from "unsatisfactory" to "satisfactory" once received (if they approve)?

Can we request an extension to the order to cease all operations?

I would hope to get enough information here if I could to try and put together the right information so we do not get shut down and can upgrade our rating.

If anyone could help me out I would really appreciate it as this is very stressful and coming at a time when we are getting our act together in this department, however the problems/ violations that occurred when we did not have much experience (we still are learning, but a little better) is coming back to haunt us and threatening to shut down our operations.

If you could reply here OR better yet PM me so we could discuss in detail that would be great.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this and have a great day!

 

Thanks for the reply.. we passed our entry audit with flying colors. The person who did that audit did not go into detail checking our log books, it was more of a new company audit where they would look to make sure we had all the correct files in order and up to date. With the second audit the agent came to our office and looked meticulously at EVERY file we had including driver records, drug and alcohol, and log books where they checked hour by hour, bols, fuel receipts... The reason for this second audit was because of our high safety rating I believe. So to answer your question during the new entry audit they did not point out any flaws and the unsatisfactory rating was due to the 2nd audit when the auditor came and dug through our files to identify the issues.