The Certificate of Road Test Is Two Documents, Not One

The certificate prescribed at 49 CFR 391.31(f) asks for nine things: driver’s name, type of power unit, type of trailer, type of bus if you carry passengers, the date, the approximate miles driven, and the examiner’s signature, title, and organization and address. That is the entire form. No license number, no Social Security number, no place to record what the driver did on the backing maneuver.

That is where carriers get caught. The certificate is a conclusion. The evidence lives on a different piece of paper — the road test form under 391.31(d), on which the examiner rates performance at each operation and then signs it. And 391.31(g) requires the driver qualification file to hold both: “(1) The original of the signed road test form required by paragraph (d) of this section; and (2) The original, or a copy of, the certificate required by paragraph (e) of this section.” Carriers keep the certificate, because it looks like the official document, and throw away the rating sheet. Half the required record goes in the shredder on day one.

What follows is the whole requirement: who must be tested, what the test must cover, who may give it, what the certificate must say, where the copies go, and the drivers who cannot use the CDL substitution at 391.33 no matter how clean the license is.

Who has to take a road test?

Every person who drives a commercial motor vehicle for you, unless a named exemption in subpart G applies. 391.31(a) is written as a prohibition on the person: “Except as provided in subpart G, a person shall not drive a commercial motor vehicle unless he/she has first successfully completed a road test and has been issued a certificate of driver’s road test in accordance with this section.”

391.11(b)(7) says it from the qualification side: a person is qualified only if he completed the road test and holds the certificate, or presented a license or certificate the carrier accepted as equivalent under 391.33.

Watch the scope word. Part 391 runs on the definition of commercial motor vehicle at 390.5T — 10,001 pounds GVWR or GCWR or more, or designed to carry more than 8 passengers for compensation, or more than 15 without, or placarded hazmat. That is a wider net than the CDL definition in 383.5, which turns on 26,001 pounds for Groups A and B — though its Group C reaches smaller vehicles designed to carry 16 or more passengers or used for placarded hazmat. The straight truck that needs no CDL still needs a road test, and its driver usually has no CDL to offer you as a substitute.

Subpart G, Limited Exemptions, is where the relief lives, and it is narrow.

The second row surprises people. 391.63(a) excuses a multiple-employer driver from the application, the 391.23 investigations, and the annual inquiry and review — a short, closed list. The road test is not on it.

What must the road test cover?

Eight operations, in the type of vehicle you intend to assign. 391.31(c) sets duration by result rather than by clock: the test “must be of sufficient duration to enable the person who gives it to evaluate the skill of the person who takes it at handling the commercial motor vehicle, and associated equipment, that the motor carriers intends to assign to him/her.” There is no minimum mileage or minimum time in the rule.

One phrase does most of the work: “the type of commercial motor vehicle the motor carrier intends to assign him/her.” A test run in a straight truck never evaluated item (c)(2), because there was nothing to couple, so it does not support putting the driver in a combination unit.

For carriers taking students from a training school, FMCSA regulatory guidance for § 391.31 — published at 62 FR 16370 on April 4, 1997 and effective the following month — puts the test at the end of the sequence: “The road test is administered only after the student has demonstrated a sufficient degree of proficiency on a range or off-road course.”

Who is allowed to administer it?

The carrier or anyone it designates, provided that person can judge the result — and never the driver himself. 391.31(b): “The road test shall be given by the motor carrier or a person designated by it. However, a driver who is a motor carrier must be given the test by a person other than himself/herself.”

The competence standard is an outcome, not a credential. The examiner must be “competent to evaluate and determine whether the person who takes the test has demonstrated that he/she is capable of operating the commercial motor vehicle, and associated equipment, that the motor carrier intends to assign him/her.” No federal certification, license class or training hours are specified. The same April 4, 1997 guidance confirms third-party administration is permitted “as long as the person who administers the road test is competent to evaluate and determine the results of the tests.”

The gotcha: designating the examiner does not move the record-keeping duty. 391.31(g) puts both documents in your qualification file. If a terminal manager or an outside school gives the test, you still need the original signed rating form in hand — not a scan of a certificate emailed six weeks later, and not a promise that the school has it. The owner-operator running under his own authority reads paragraph (b) most closely: he cannot test himself, and nothing excuses him from being tested.

What must the certificate say?

Substantially what the form in 391.31(f) says, and it must name one driver. 391.31(e) requires the examiner who gave a successfully completed test to “complete a certificate of driver’s road test in substantially the form prescribed in paragraph (f)”: a heading, Certification of Road Test; the driver’s name; type of power unit and type of trailer(s); type of bus if a passenger carrier; a sentence certifying the test was given under the examiner’s supervision on a stated date, “consisting of approximately ______ miles of driving”; the opinion sentence — “It is my considered opinion that this driver possesses sufficient driving skill to operate safely the type of commercial motor vehicle listed above” — and lines for the examiner’s signature, title, and organization and address.

Three things about that list matter in an audit.

Substantially, not verbatim. The phrase gives you latitude on layout and lets you add fields. It does not let you drop the ones listed.

No blanket forms. FMCSA guidance issued April 4, 1997 answers the question “May a carrier use a blanket certification of road test for specific vehicles (driver’s names, etc., left out)?” in one word: “No.”

The certificate does not carry the rating. It records the examiner’s opinion. The form under (d) carries the per-operation ratings and a second signature. A file with a flawless certificate and no rating form still fails 391.31(g)(1).

Where do the copies go, and how long do they stay?

Three destinations, and one of them is the driver. 391.31(g) opens with the line everyone skips: “A copy of the certificate required by paragraph (e) of this section shall be given to the person who was examined.” That is why a driver arriving from another carrier can hand you a certificate under 391.33(a)(2) at all.

That “original” is an exception to a general permission. 390.31 allows legible copies in lieu of originals “[e]xcept as otherwise provided,” and 391.31(g)(1) provides otherwise. If your files are electronic, the paper rating form still has to exist somewhere you can produce it.

In the file this is item (b)(3), and 391.51(b)(3) accepts any one of three things: the certificate issued under 391.31(e), a copy of the license or certificate accepted as equivalent under 391.33, or the written statement and driver certification produced under the vision-standard route at 391.44(d)(3), covered below. Our walkthrough of the driver qualification file puts item (b)(3) beside the other seven, and there is a printable DQ file checklist.

Retention is long. 391.51(c) keeps the file “for as long as a driver is employed by that motor carrier and for three years thereafter,” and the five recurring records 391.51(d) releases three years after execution do not include either road test document. They stay for the life of the file.

When can you accept a CDL instead of testing?

When the license was issued after a state road test in the type of vehicle you intend to assign, and the assignment involves no doubles, triples or tank. 391.33(a) lets a driver present, and a carrier accept, either a valid CDL as defined in 383.5, “but not including double/triple trailer or tank vehicle endorsements,” which under the laws of that State licenses him “after successful completion of a road test in a commercial motor vehicle of the type the motor carrier intends to assign to him/her”; or “[a] copy of a valid certificate of driver’s road test issued to him/her pursuant to § 391.31 within the preceding 3 years.”

FMCSA guidance issued April 4, 1997 states the working rule: “The employer may accept a CDL in lieu of a road test if the driver is required to successfully complete a road test to obtain a CDL in the State of issuance. However, if the employer intends to assign to the driver a vehicle necessitating the doubles/triples or tank vehicle endorsement, the employer must administer the road test under §391.31 in a representative vehicle.”

Part 383 shows what those two endorsements do and do not prove, and knowing it ends the argument at the recruiting desk. 383.93(c) lists the test required for each endorsement: Double/Triple Trailers — a knowledge test. Tank vehicle — a knowledge test. Hazardous Materials — a knowledge test. Passenger and School bus — a knowledge and a skills test. A state can therefore issue the doubles/triples and tank endorsements without ever watching the driver handle that equipment, and 391.33 rests on a state road test having happened. The rules do not state the agency’s reasoning, and the fit is not exact — the hazardous materials endorsement is knowledge-only too and is not carved out. What governs is the text: 391.33(a)(1) names those two endorsements and no others.

Two more limits get read past. The license must match the assignment — 391.33(a)(1) requires the CDL to have been issued after a road test in a vehicle “of the type the motor carrier intends to assign,” so a Class B tested on a straight truck does not document a combination assignment. And a CLP is not a CDL: 383.5 defines a commercial learner’s permit as authorizing operation “when accompanied by a holder of a valid CDL for purposes of behind-the-wheel training.” A permit holder gets a road test.

391.33(c) preserves the obvious: a carrier may require anyone presenting a license or certificate as equivalent “to take a road test or any other test of his/her driving skill as a condition to his/her employment as a driver.” The federal rule is a floor.

Which drivers may not use the substitution?

Four groups — and one of them rests on a rule most carriers have never read.

The vision row is worth reading twice. Under 391.44(d)(1), an individual physically qualified under that section for the first time “shall not drive a commercial motor vehicle until the individual has successfully completed a road test subsequent to physical qualification,” and he carries a duty to inform the carrier that he is required to have one. Then 391.44(d)(2) closes the door: for those tests, “the provisions of § 391.33 for the equivalent of a road test do not apply.” A spotless CDL does not substitute. Once he passes and holds a certificate, 391.33 applies to him again like anyone else.

Three exceptions exist, and each produces paperwork rather than nothing. 391.44(d)(3) excuses the test where the carrier determines the individual held a valid license and operated a CMV with the vision deficiency in intrastate commerce, or in interstate commerce excepted by 390.3T(f) or 391.2, for the 3-year period immediately preceding first qualification — but only if the individual certifies in writing the date the deficiency began and the carrier writes up its determination, copies the driver, and files both. That pair is the third option in 391.51(b)(3). Paragraphs (d)(4) and (d)(5) excuse the test for individuals who held a valid FMCSA vision exemption on March 22, 2022, or were medically certified on that date under the previous vision waiver study program.

One adjacent case: a Skill Performance Evaluation certificate under 391.49 is not a blanket pass on your equipment. That section puts a duty on the employing carrier to evaluate the driver “with a road test using the trailer the motor carrier intends the driver to transport,” or accept a similar trailer road test from another carrier or from the SPE itself.

How do you run one that survives an audit?

What does an auditor actually cite?

Not a line item aimed at the road test — which is why the exposure gets misjudged. The list of acute and critical regulations in 49 CFR part 385, appendix B names three qualification-file failures: 391.51(a), failing to maintain a DQ file on each driver employed (critical); 391.51(b)(2), the driving record inquiries (critical); and 391.51(b)(6), the medical examiner’s certificate (critical). Item (b)(3) has no entry of its own.

The exposure runs through two other doors. A file missing item (b)(3) is an incomplete qualification file, and 391.51(a) is the critical violation for failing to maintain one. And a driver with no road test and no accepted equivalent is not qualified under 391.11(b)(7) at all — a different conversation from a filing error.

Civil penalties are assessed separately from the safety rating and are inflation-adjusted annually; pull the current schedule from 49 CFR part 386, appendix B on ecfr.gov rather than from any article, this one included. Where the test sits in the wider hiring sequence is laid out in our DOT compliance checklist for hiring.

What the certificate cannot tell you

It records one examiner’s opinion, formed over a few miles, on one morning. Read the sentence the rule puts in the examiner’s mouth: “It is my considered opinion that this driver possesses sufficient driving skill to operate safely the type of commercial motor vehicle listed above.” Skill, on that vehicle, that day.

Everything that makes a driver expensive over the next two years is outside that sentence. Whether he shows up. Whether he calls when he is running late. How the trailer came back. Whether he finished the contract or left the truck at a travel center in another state. None of it is a driving-skill question, and none of it generates a federal record — not an MVR entry, not a PSP report line, and not necessarily an answer on a safety performance history request. What 391.23(d) and (e) require you to ask a previous employer — driver identification and employment verification, accidents in the previous three years, and part 382 drug and alcohol history — is a minimum you may exceed, not a ceiling. But nothing on that mandatory list reaches any of it, and nothing obliges the previous employer to answer beyond it.

That is the layer cdlscan is built for: reviews written by carriers who actually employed the driver, tied to the period they employed him, covering behavior the federal record has no field for. A name search takes seconds, so it fits in the same sitting as scheduling the road test rather than adding a step, and any carrier can contribute one.

Say the boundary plainly, because it is what matters in an audit: this sits on top of the mandatory record, never in place of any part of it. The road test under 391.31, the equivalent accepted under 391.33, the qualification file under 391.51, the investigations under 391.23 and the Clearinghouse query under 382.701 are legally required, and nothing here discharges any of them. If you intend to rely on third-party information about a candidate as a factor in a hiring decision, ask the provider which category of information they consider it under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and confirm the obligations with your own counsel first.

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