The driving and employment histories of truck drivers throughout the United States are recorded by a privately owned company called HireRight. The information gathered and recorded by HireRight every year is available to carriers as a convenient, all-in-one method for checking on the employability of a driver. This report is called the DAC, which stands for Drive-A-Check. The HireRight database contains an extensive profile of all of the areas a carrier considers important when hiring new drivers: your personal and license information, including any restrictions and endorsements, the number of years you’ve been driving; your employment history for the past 10 years, the types of freight and trailers you’ve hauled, your performance at any driving schools, the number of accidents you’ve had, crash reports, road inspection data, information gathered from both your Motor Vehicle Report and Pre-Employment Screening Program Report, any criminal background or drug/alcohol history, and details about your past jobs, including why you left other employers and your work habits while employed.
While the information from your MVR report comes from the state in which you have your license, and the PSP report from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association database, much of the information regarding your employment history is submitted by previous employers and there is very little oversight on ensuring the accuracy of the information reported. For this reason, it’s important that every commercial driver stay up to date on what his or her DAC record says and works to dispute any false or inaccurate information immediately. Information is updated on a yearly basis and remains on your report for 7 years – so false reporting can cause you to miss out on hiring opportunities for information you may not even be aware is on your record. It’s also possible that any accidents or crashes on your record may be reported incorrectly, stating that you were at fault in an incident when you were not.
Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you are entitled to one free copy of your DAC record every year – so be sure you take advantage of this opportunity and check to make sure all of the information reported about you is accurate. You can get your report by submitting an application through the company that handles DAC records. Reports are not available in digital form, so you will need to plan to wait approximately 10-15 days to receive a copy in the mail.
The most important thing to remember is that correcting your record should be done as quickly as possible with the company that handles DAC records. Waiting can have a big impact on your career as a commercial driver.