§ 396.11(a)(1) states the duty on both sides at once: every motor carrier shall require its drivers to report, and every driver shall prepare a report in writing at the completion of each day’s work on each vehicle operated. The report covers at least eleven parts and accessories — service brakes including trailer brake connections, parking brake, steering mechanism, lighting devices and reflectors, tires, horn, windshield wipers, rear vision mirrors, coupling devices, wheels and rims, and emergency equipment. Set that list beside § 392.7’s and it is essentially the same list. That is the design rather than a coincidence: the same components are checked at the start of the day by the driver taking the vehicle out and reported at the end of the day by the driver bringing it back, so the report is what carries one driver’s findings to the next.

The content rules are short and two of them decide most cases. The report must identify the vehicle and list any defect or deficiency discovered by, OR REPORTED TO, the driver which would affect the safety of operation or result in mechanical breakdown — so something a mechanic or a previous driver told you belongs on it as surely as something you found. If a driver operates more than one vehicle during the day, a report is prepared for each. The driver must sign it, and on two-driver operations only one signature is needed provided both drivers agree as to the defects or deficiencies identified. And then the provision that shapes § 11.2’s review duty: drivers are NOT required to prepare a report if no defect or deficiency was discovered by or reported to them. No defects, no report — which is why the next driver may find nothing to review and why that absence is not a gap.

The rest of the section is the carrier’s half of the loop, and it is what makes the report worth writing. Before requiring or permitting a driver to operate the vehicle, the carrier or its agent shall repair any defect or deficiency listed on the report which would be likely to affect safety of operation; and it shall certify on that report either that the defect has been repaired or that repair is unnecessary, before the vehicle is operated again. That certification is the thing the next driver signs against under § 396.13(c). The carrier keeps the report, the repair certification and the driver’s review certification for three months from the date the report was prepared. § 396.11(a)(5) excepts three operations from the whole section: a private motor carrier of passengers operating non-business, a driveaway-towaway operation, and any motor carrier operating only ONE commercial motor vehicle. A driver who is the only driver of the only vehicle a carrier operates therefore falls inside that third exception.

§ 396.11(a)(6) allows the report to be created and maintained electronically under 49 CFR 390.32, and § 396.11(b) runs a parallel process for intermodal equipment, where the driver or carrier reports known damage, defects or deficiencies to the equipment provider when the equipment is returned, against its own list of components.