Texas Highway Patrol is seeking bids to establish with a third-party vendor to conduct offsite New Entrant Safety Audits as required by the Federal Motor Carrier Administration. Requirements outlined herein applied to contractor and subcontractors, if applicable. Texas leads the nation in new motor carriers seeking USDOT numbers, routinely having an inventory of new carriers in excess of 9,000. New Carriers are statistically more likely to involved in traffic crashes than established carriers. It is critical that new carriers be contacted early to ensure compliance with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. Although the Agency has a robust New Entrant Program that conducts over 5,000 audits per year, vacancies within the program and a steady stream of new entrant carriers causes the inventory to remain high. The Agency is attempting to fill vacancies and add positions but using a contractor could increase the number of audits conducted and lower the inventory.
