Your rights on the road

The coercion rule

49 CFR 390.6 makes it illegal for a carrier, shipper, receiver or broker to threaten your job, your loads or your pay to make you break a safety rule (hours of service, a bad brake, an overweight load, a medical issue) or to punish you for refusing. The rule has teeth, but only if you build the record:

• Say it in writing. "I am out of hours, I cannot legally move this load until 0600." Text beats a phone call.
• Right after a coercive call, write down what was said and email it to yourself so it has a timestamp.
• File within 90 days of the incident with the FMCSA Complaint Center. The complaint needs your name and contact, the company's name and address, the rule you were pushed to break, and a plain statement of what happened with dates.

Source: FMCSA, Prohibited coercion FAQ

How to file against a carrier or broker

The FMCSA Complaint Center (the old National Consumer Complaint Database) takes complaints from drivers against carriers, brokers, ELD providers, medical review officers and service agents: hours-of-service pressure, operating without authority or insurance, harassment, identity theft on a USDOT number, a broker misrepresenting itself. File online or call 1-888-DOT-SAFT (1-888-368-7238), 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern, weekdays. FMCSA uses complaints to decide who gets investigated, so a complaint that goes nowhere for you can still land on the company.

Source: FMCSA Complaint Center

DataQs: get a bad inspection off your record

Every roadside inspection and crash goes into FMCSA's data and follows your record through the Pre-Employment Screening Program that carriers pull when you apply. If an inspection is wrong (a violation that was not yours, a crash you were not at fault in, a duplicate), file a Request for Data Review in DataQs with the report number and your evidence. It is free, and the state that wrote the report has to answer.

Pull your own PSP record (a few dollars) before you job hunt so nothing surprises you.

Source: DataQs and Pre-Employment Screening Program

When a broker does not pay

Every property broker has to keep a $75,000 surety bond or trust (BMC-84 or BMC-85) on file with FMCSA. If a broker does not pay you for a delivered load, you can make a claim against that bond. Look the broker up in FMCSA's Licensing and Insurance system to get the surety company and bond number, send the surety your rate confirmation, bill of lading and invoice, and send the broker a written demand at the same time. Many drivers get paid the week the surety is notified, because a claim on the bond is a problem for the broker's business. Claims are first come, first served against a $75,000 pool, so do not wait.

Source: FMCSA Licensing and Insurance lookup

Check a carrier or broker before you sign

Before you lease on, take a load, or accept a job: look the company up in SAFER (authority status, safety rating, inspection history, insurance on file) and in Licensing and Insurance (whether the authority is active, revoked or pending). A company that is "pending" cannot legally haul for hire. A broker with no bond on file is not a broker. Both lookups are free and take two minutes.

Source: FMCSA SAFER and Licensing and Insurance

Parking

There is one truck parking spot for about every eleven trucks, which is why Jason's Law exists and why USDOT has been pushing money at it: $200 million in October 2026 for twelve states, more in the fiscal 2027 bill. Until that is built, the practical tools are the apps. Trucker Path shows free spots from crowd reports and now lists over 70,000 reservable paid spots. FHWA keeps the national survey and a map of public truck parking by state.

Know the rule: you can use personal conveyance to move to the nearest safe spot after a shipper or receiver keeps you past your hours. Log it as PC and note why.

Source: FHWA Truck Parking and FMCSA, Personal conveyance