Trucking accident lawyer in San Antonio: the federal motor carrier safety rules, part by part

Truck Accident Lawyers SATX is the website of LAWBOSS – Uvalle Law Firm, PLLC. Trucking companies are among the most regulated businesses on the road. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, in Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulations, tell a carrier whom it may hire, how long its drivers may drive, how its trucks must be equipped and maintained, and what records it must keep. This page goes through those rules part by part, as we read them in the electronic Code of Federal Regulations in October 2026, and explains what each one means after a crash.

Part	What it covers	Records it creates
382	Drug and alcohol testing, including after a crash, and the federal Clearinghouse	Test results, records of tests not done in time, Clearinghouse queries
383	Commercial driver’s license standards	License class, endorsements, disqualifications
387	Minimum insurance for motor carriers	Policies and the MCS-90 endorsement
390	General rules, definitions, the accident register	Accident register kept 3 years
391	Driver qualification	Driver qualification file, medical examiner’s certificate
392	Driving rules: fatigue, alcohol, drugs, phones, cargo checks	Phone records, camera video, inspection notes
393	Parts and equipment, cargo securement, rear impact guards	The vehicle itself
395	Hours of service and electronic logging devices	Electronic logs and supporting documents kept 6 months
396	Inspection, repair and maintenance	Maintenance records, daily inspection reports, annual inspection

Who the rules apply to

Under 49 CFR 390.3, the safety rules in this subchapter apply to employers, employees and commercial motor vehicles that move property or passengers in interstate commerce. Section 390.5 makes a vehicle a commercial motor vehicle in interstate commerce once its weight rating reaches 10,001 pounds, among other tests. The rules are a floor, not a ceiling: section 390.3(d) lets an employer set stricter requirements of its own.

Trucks that stay inside Texas

Transportation Code section 644.051 directs the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety to adopt rules on the safe operation of commercial motor vehicles, consistent with federal regulations, and allows the federal rules to be adopted by reference. The rule that does so, 37 Texas Administrative Code 4.11, incorporates the federal Parts 40, 380, 382, 385 to 387, 390 to 393 and 395 to 397, and applies them to intrastate vehicles with an actual gross weight or weight rating over 26,000 pounds, vehicles carrying placarded hazardous materials, and others it lists. Texas sets its own hours for intrastate drivers in 37 Texas Administrative Code 4.12: up to 12 hours of driving after 8 consecutive hours off duty, no driving after 15 hours on duty, and no more than 70 hours in any seven consecutive days, with a restart after 34 hours off.

Part 382: drug and alcohol testing

Part 382 forbids a driver to report for or remain on duty in a safety-sensitive function with an alcohol concentration of 0.04 or more (section 382.201). It also requires testing after a crash. Under section 382.303, the employer must test each surviving driver for alcohol and for controlled substances as soon as practicable when the crash involved a death. It must also test when the driver receives a citation for a moving violation arising from the crash and someone was injured and treated away from the scene, or a vehicle had to be towed: within 8 hours for the citation in the alcohol case, and within 32 hours in the drug case.

The timing rules matter. If the alcohol test is not given within 2 hours, the employer must write down why; after 8 hours it must stop trying and keep that record. A drug test not given within 32 hours must also be explained in writing. A missing test, and the employer’s record of why, are both evidence. Section 382.701 also requires the carrier to query the federal Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse before a driver starts and at least once a year.

Part 383: commercial driver’s licenses

Section 383.23 forbids anyone to operate a commercial motor vehicle, as Part 383 defines it, without passing the knowledge and skills tests and holding a commercial driver’s license from the state of domicile. Most tractor-trailers fall in Group A, a combination with a gross combination weight rating of 26,001 pounds or more towing a unit rated over 10,000 pounds (section 383.5). A driver without the right license class or endorsement, or one disqualified at the time, is a fact Texas law lets a jury hear even in a split trial.

Part 387: insurance

Section 387.7 forbids a motor carrier to operate until it has the minimum financial responsibility set in section 387.9. For a for-hire carrier moving ordinary property in interstate commerce in a vehicle rated 10,001 pounds or more, the minimum is 750,000 dollars. It is 1,000,000 dollars for oil and many hazardous materials and 5,000,000 dollars for certain hazardous substances carried in bulk. These are minimums: many carriers carry more, and the policies, the MCS-90 endorsement and any excess coverage are among the first things we ask for.

Part 390: general rules and the accident register

Part 390 holds the definitions that decide who is responsible. A motor carrier includes its agents, officers and representatives, and the employees responsible for hiring, supervising, training, assigning or dispatching drivers. An employee includes a driver who is an independent contractor while operating a commercial vehicle. Under section 390.15, the carrier must make all records and information about a crash available to authorized investigators, and must keep an accident register for 3 years with the date, place, driver, injuries and fatalities of each crash, plus copies of the crash reports required by states or insurers.

Part 391: driver qualification

Section 391.11 says a person is qualified to drive a commercial motor vehicle only if he or she is at least 21, can read and speak English well enough to talk with the public, understand road signs and respond to officials, can safely operate the vehicle by experience or training, is physically qualified, holds one valid commercial license, is not disqualified and has passed a road test or its equivalent. Before hiring, the carrier must take an application (391.21), get the driver’s motor vehicle record covering 3 years within 30 days and check the driver’s safety performance with employers over the past 3 years (391.23). The driver must carry a current medical examiner’s certificate (391.41).

All of it goes in the driver qualification file, which section 391.51 requires the carrier to keep while the driver works there and for 3 years after. The file shows what the carrier knew about the driver, and when.

Part 392: driving rules

• 392.2: drive according to local law, or the federal rule where it is stricter
• 392.3: no driving while impaired by fatigue or illness, and no carrier may require or permit it
• 392.4 and 392.5: no Schedule I drugs, amphetamines or narcotics on duty; no alcohol within 4 hours before going on duty
• 392.6: no schedule that requires speeding
• 392.7: the driver must be satisfied that brakes, steering, lights, tires, mirrors, coupling devices and other listed parts work before driving
• 392.9: cargo and securement inspected within the first 50 miles and rechecked during the trip
• 392.80 and 392.82: no texting and no hand-held mobile telephone while driving, including while stopped in traffic

Part 393: parts, equipment and cargo

Part 393 covers what the truck must have and how it must be loaded. Section 393.48 requires all of a vehicle’s brakes to be capable of operating at all times. Section 393.86 requires a rear impact guard on most trailers rated 10,000 pounds or more made on or after January 26, 1998, with its lower edge no more than 22 inches above the ground. The cargo securement rules beginning at 393.100 require cargo to be secured against leaking, spilling, blowing, falling and shifting, and 393.102 sets the forces tiedowns must withstand. Our 18 wheeler accident lawyer San Antonio page connects these rules to the crashes they prevent.

Part 395: hours of service and electronic logs

For property-carrying drivers, section 395.3 sets the limits most often at issue in a crash:

• No driving without first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty
• No driving after the 14th consecutive hour after coming on duty
• No more than 11 hours of driving within that 14-hour period
• A 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving, except for qualifying short-haul drivers
• No driving after 60 hours on duty in 7 days, or 70 hours in 8 days for carriers operating every day, with a restart after 34 hours off

Section 395.1(b) allows up to two extra hours of driving when a driver meets adverse driving conditions: bad weather or unusual road or traffic conditions that were not known, and could not reasonably have been known, before the duty day or the dispatch. It is one of the explanations carriers raise. Under section 395.8, most carriers must use an electronic logging device to record each driver’s duty status, and no driver or carrier may disable, reprogram or tamper with it. The carrier must keep the logs and supporting documents for at least 6 months (395.8(k)). Section 395.11 lists the supporting documents: bills of lading and itineraries, dispatch and trip records, expense receipts, fleet management messages and payroll or settlement records. Comparing the log with fuel receipts, toll records and messages is how false logs are found.

Part 396: inspection, repair and maintenance

Section 396.3 requires every motor carrier to systematically inspect, repair and maintain the vehicles under its control and to keep records of it for 1 year and for 6 months after a vehicle leaves its control. Section 396.11 requires a written driver vehicle inspection report at the end of each day’s work listing any defect found or reported; the carrier must repair defects likely to affect safety before the vehicle is driven again and keep the report for 3 months. Section 396.17 requires each vehicle in a combination to pass a periodic inspection at least once every 12 months.

Leases and brokers

Two more parts often decide who is responsible. Under Part 376, a lease of equipment to an authorized carrier must give the carrier exclusive possession, control and use of the equipment and complete responsibility for its operation during the lease (376.12(c)(1)). Part 371 governs brokers, which it defines as persons who arrange transportation by an authorized motor carrier for compensation (371.2). Our truck accident attorney San Antonio page explains how both lead to liability.

How a rule violation is used in a Texas case

A broken rule is not automatically the end of the question. Under Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 72.053, in the first phase of a split commercial vehicle trial, evidence that a defendant failed to comply with a regulation is admitted only if the failure tends to prove it was a proximate cause of the injury and the regulation is specific and governs the defendant or its equipment. Rules that did not cause the crash may still matter to a claim for exemplary damages in the second phase. That is why we tie each violation to how the crash happened. Our Texas truck accident laws page covers the trial rules.

For how long a carrier must keep each of these records, see our article on trucking company record retention. For what we do in the first days of a case, see our truck accident lawyer San Antonio page.

The consultation is free. If there is no recovery, you owe no attorney’s fee and no case costs; the written fee agreement sets the percentage and how advanced costs are handled when there is a recovery.

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