It's a new day for two-truck owner-operator Jeffrey Crise's A&J Transport Recovery business, Overdrive's Trucker of the Month for August, after spending a month under a Motus-glitch "Involuntary suspension" of his authority.
He's back up now.
Previously, on top of Crise's carrier-authority suspension his old, long-out-of-use broker authority had been showing as active, with no bond on file at all. That's corrected in the record now, too.
It's worth noting owner-operator Crise didn't learn of the correction from FMCSA directly, despite opening tickets with customer service there.
"No one ever called or emailed me," he said Wednesday. "I actually found out speaking with an attorney about what I could possibly do, or better yet what their firm could do" to help remedy the situation: his authority suspended despite maintaining active insurance on file, with ripple effects in all the carrier vetting platforms brokers use.
The attorney looked up Crise's Motus profile as they talked, then asked, "So you need your broker authority activated?"
Crise: "I had to sit down. I just couldn't believe what I heard. ... As of [Tuesday] I am legally running. Carrier authority is activated."
He couldn't say Wednesday how long it might be before vetting/broker onboarding and monitoring platforms -- Highway, RMIS, and the like -- would reflect the status, but "at least I don't have to worry about an out-of-service."
The same can't be said for the untold numbers of carriers still inactive due to insurance. FMCSA made some progress this week, clearly, yet many carriers remain in limbo.
[Related: What's wrong with this picture? Motus mess costing small fleets thousands]
One of those is Steven Lapp's 20-plus-year-old, one-truck Champion Trucking business, with his authority inactive after he changed insurers on August 14, he said. Despite current insurance on file, and his most recent authority status reading "GRANTED," his interstate authority in Motus is inactive:
Like Crise, Lapp's been unable to break through the dam with any broker who's utilizing Highway or RMIS for onboarding given the inactivation, yet he does have intrastate authority in Texas, where he happened to be when he wrote Overdrive earlier this week.
No dice there, either. Since he set up his Highway profile with both interstate DOT and MC numbers, Highway told him, there's no way to simply rely on his intrastate credential for verifying his identity.
He'd contacted FMCSA about the issue several times, "to no avail" when he first wrote to Overdrive early this week. He did have a conversation with his state's division office subsequently, and at least has gotten confirmation from agency headquarters they're aware of his situation.
(Overdrive also shared Lapp's predicament with FMCSA's press office. To all the carriers who've reached out since airing of Crise's story last Friday: The same office has been made aware of your predicaments as well, though the agency did not respond to several questions about why the problems are occurring, and what owner-operators impacted might expect in terms of recompense for the downtime.)
"I'm beyond frustrated with this situation," he said. "They're taking away my ability to operate my business legally."
Lapp added that a rep in his FMCSA state division office "also lamented the issues with Motus, and said that their office has constant troubles trying to use the system." He emailed his Florida congressional rep, his two Senators as well, he said Thursday. "I was unable to book two loads this morning because both RMIS and Highway have me listed as unauthorized," worth $2,500 in foregone revenue.
As with owner-operator Crise, legal remedies were on his mind as he wondered whether associations like the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association had considered such maneuvers to push the agency to fix the problems.
Clearly, they've made some progress, yet they may well be working through improperly inactivated authorities case-by-case, judging by a batch of recently reactivated carriers pulled by Overdrive sister Fusable company CAB.
Many that have been reactivated over the six days following and including last Friday, when our prior report ran, show the same "Administrative correction" status as owner-operator Crise's authority, pictured above. The batch amounted to just 165 authorities brought back to active status after an "involuntary suspension," plus one more: Jeffrey Crise's. (Last week, CAB noted more than 1,200 carriers in involuntary suspension due to insurance, depsite active policies on file.)
So far, OOIDA appears to be focused case-by-case, too, helping members they've heard from directly -- if you're a member, consider them a potential avenue toward help. The association provided this statement in response to questions about remedies, legal or otherwise:
“We have heard from members who have encountered issues with Motus. In response, we have worked closely with FMCSA to resolve individual cases as quickly as possible. We will continue working with the agency to diagnose and remedy problems while the system is improved."
