DOT log violations: what 49 CFR 395.8 says and how log violations count on your CSA score

Log violations are cited under 49 CFR 395.8, the rule on the driver’s record of duty status (RODS). They land in the Hours-of-Service (HOS) Compliance BASIC of your CSA record, next to the hours limits in 395.3. This guide quotes the parts of 395.8 that most roadside cites rest on, the exceptions that take a driver or a truck outside them, how FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System (SMS) weighs a log violation, and what a DataQs challenge can and cannot fix.

The log rule, word for word

49 CFR 395.8(a)(1) requires a motor carrier to “require each driver used by the motor carrier to record the driver’s duty status for each 24-hour period”, and 395.8(a)(1)(i) sets the method: a motor carrier “must install and require each of its drivers to use an ELD to record the driver’s duty status in accordance with subpart B of this part”. The parts behind most roadside cites are:

• False report, 395.8(e)(1): “No driver or motor carrier may make a false report in connection with a duty status.”
• ELD tampering, 395.8(e)(2): “No driver or motor carrier may disable, deactivate, disengage, jam, or otherwise block or degrade a signal transmission or reception, or reengineer, reprogram, or otherwise tamper with an ELD so that the device does not accurately record and retain required data.” Paragraph (e)(3) applies the same to permitting or requiring another person to do it.
• Log not current, 395.8(f)(1): “Drivers shall keep their records of duty status current to the time shown for the last change of duty status.”
• Previous 7 days, 395.8(k)(2): “The driver shall retain a copy of each record of duty status for the previous 7 consecutive days which shall be in his/her possession and available for inspection while on duty.”
• Carrier retention, 395.8(k)(1): the motor carrier keeps records of duty status and supporting documents for each driver “for a period of not less than 6 months from the date of receipt.”

Who may use a paper log instead of an ELD

395.8(a)(1)(ii)(A) lets a carrier have a driver record duty status by hand, rather than on an ELD, if the driver is operating a commercial motor vehicle:

• “In a manner requiring completion of a record of duty status on not more than 8 days within any 30-day period”;
• “In a driveaway-towaway operation in which the vehicle being driven is part of the shipment being delivered”;
• “In a driveaway-towaway operation in which the vehicle being transported is a motor home or a recreation vehicle trailer”; or
• “That was manufactured before model year 2000, as reflected in the vehicle identification number as shown on the vehicle’s registration.”

These are exceptions to the ELD, not to the log. The driver still keeps a record of duty status, in duplicate, on the grid in 395.8(g). The model-year exception is proved from the registration, which is the document the rule itself names.

Who needs no log at all: the short-haul exceptions

49 CFR 395.1(e)(1): “A driver is exempt from the requirements of §§ 395.8 and 395.11 if” all of these are true:

• “The driver operates within a 150 air-mile radius (172.6 statute miles) of the normal work reporting location”;
• “The driver, except a driver-salesperson, returns to the work reporting location and is released from work within 14 consecutive hours”;
• a property-carrying driver “has at least 10 consecutive hours off-duty separating each 14 hours on-duty” (8 hours for a passenger-carrying driver); and
• “The motor carrier that employs the driver maintains and retains for a period of 6 months accurate and true time records showing” the time the driver reports for duty each day, the total hours on duty each day, the time the driver is released each day, and, for a driver used for the first time or intermittently, the total time for the preceding 7 days.

395.1(e)(2) has a second short-haul exception for drivers of property-carrying vehicles that do not need a CDL, within 150 air miles, with its own limits on driving after the 14th and 16th hour. Both exceptions depend on the carrier’s time records. Without them, the exception is not met.

How a log violation counts

• Which BASIC. Log codes are in the HOS Compliance BASIC, which uses violations from driver inspections (Levels 1, 2, 3 and 6) in the past 24 months.
• Severity. FMCSA’s current SMS data puts the 395.8 codes in three groups: False Log at severity 7 (false report codes such as 3958E and 3958EHOSPD, the personal conveyance false log codes, and ELD tampering); Incomplete/Wrong Log at 5 (no record of duty status, ELD required or not, log not current, no previous 7 days); and Other Log/Form & Manner at 1 (3958A and 3958, form and manner). A violation marked out of service adds 2. A citation that ends in a conviction on a different charge drops to severity 1 (see your ticket was dismissed in court).
• Most missing-log cites are out of service. In the same data, 59,193 of the 62,982 rows for 3958A1HOSP (no record of duty status by the prescribed method) and 9,091 of the 9,376 rows for 3958AELD (no record of duty status, ELD required) are marked out of service. More on how out-of-service cites are treated: out-of-service violations and your CSA score.
• Same code, one count. The SMS “uses each violation cite only once per inspection in cases of multiple counts of the same violation.” Different codes count separately, and the total severity on one inspection in one BASIC is capped at 30.
• Time weight. The severity is multiplied by 3 for a violation in the last 6 months, 2 from 6 to 12 months, and 1 from 12 to 24 months. After 24 months it no longer counts.

Worked example (a hypothetical inspection, arithmetic on the rules above). Four months ago an officer cites a false log (3958EHOSPD, not out of service) and a form and manner error (3958A). That is 7 + 1 = 8, times a time weight of 3 = 24 toward your HOS Compliance measure. Thirteen months after the inspection the same two lines count 8 × 1 = 8. The measure divides these points by the time weight of all your relevant driver inspections, clean ones included; see what is a CSA score?

Before you challenge: what a reviewer can act on

1. Check the driver and the unit are yours. Match the driver, VIN and plate on the report against your drivers, registrations and leases. If they belong to another carrier, that is a different request: an inspection on your record that isn’t yours.
2. Check whether the rule applied. A no-log cite against a driver who met every condition of the short-haul exception in 395.1(e)(1) is outside 395.8. The proof is the carrier’s own time records for that day and the location of the inspection against the normal work reporting location. If any one condition was not met, or the time records do not exist, the exception does not apply.
3. Check which kind of log was required. If the truck was built before model year 2000, as shown by the VIN on its registration, an ELD was not required, but a log was. A driver who had a complete paper log has the log itself to show. A driver who had none was still without a required log: the ELD-required and ELD-not-required codes both carry severity 5, so changing one for the other does not change the points.
4. Read what the false log rests on. A false log finding means the officer found the log did not match something else: a time, a place, a receipt, ELD data. A challenge needs a document that shows the log was true at the points the officer relied on. A report that does not spell out the comparison is not enough by itself, because the reviewer can ask the officer.
5. Compare the times on a “not current” cite. 395.8(f)(1) turns on the last change of duty status. If the log as it stood at the roadside already showed the driver’s duty status up to the time the report gives for the inspection, with no later change missing, the log contradicts the cite. The proof is the log itself for that day, as recorded, not a version edited afterwards.
6. Count the repeats. Because one code counts once per inspection, correcting one of two instances of the same code leaves the violation in place at full weight. Every instance has to be wrong, each for its own documented reason.
7. File it properly. A request that carries its own proof, attached on the first submission: how to dispute a DOT violation and file a DataQ.

If none of these applies and the report is accurate, a challenge will not remove the violation. It loses weight at 6 and 12 months and stops counting at 24.

Sources

• 49 CFR 395.8, Driver’s record of duty status (eCFR, current to 22 October 2026; section last amended 18 November 2024): paragraphs (a)(1), (a)(1)(i), (a)(1)(ii)(A), (e), (f)(1) and (k), quoted above.
• 49 CFR 395.1, Scope of rules in this part (eCFR, current to 22 October 2026): paragraph (e), the short-haul exceptions.
• FMCSA, Safety Measurement System (SMS) Methodology, Version 3.21 (methodology revised May 2026): HOS Compliance BASIC, pp. 3-10 to 3-13 (driver inspection Levels 1, 2, 3 and 6, one cite per inspection, OOS weight of 2, cap of 30, time weights; footnote 18, conviction of a different charge).
• FMCSA, “SMS Input – Violation” dataset, data.transportation.gov: the violation codes beginning 3958 and 39511, their descriptions, BASIC, violation group, severity weight and out-of-service flag, read 24 October 2026.