§390.35 prohibits any person from making, or causing to be made, any fraudulent or intentionally false statement, entry, or report on any application, certificate, report, record, or other document required by Part 390 or Parts 380–399 generally. The regulation reaches MCS-150 filings, accident registers, driver qualification files, vehicle maintenance records, and HOS records.
Audit consequence
Falsification findings read as evidence of management knowledge and intent. A pattern of §390.35 findings — false MCS-150 entries, fabricated driver inquiry responses, manipulated maintenance records — pushes a borderline compliance-review rating to conditional or unsatisfactory and is grounds for Part 385 enforcement in egregious cases.
Common §390.35 surfaces
- MCS-150 lists fewer power units / drivers than actually operated
- Accident register omits §390.5T DOT-recordable events
- Driver qualification files include forged §391.31 road-test certificates
- Maintenance records list §396.3 PMs that didn't occur
- Annual inspection §396.17 records show inspections by unqualified inspectors
Civil and criminal exposure
Beyond the regulatory penalty, §390.35 entries are documentary evidence in fraud and obstruction-of-justice prosecutions. After a fatality, prosecutors examine the records for falsifications first.
How to prevent it
- Every Part 390 record has a clear paper or system trail showing when it was created and by whom.
- Compliance events in Roadworthy HQ are immutable; corrections are reversing events, not overwrites, so no record can be silently revised.
- Annual third-party DOT audit (post-new-entrant) surfaces falsification before FMCSA does.
How Roadworthy HQ helps
Compliance events in Roadworthy HQ are append-only: the database refuses updates and deletes, and a correction is written as a new event that points at the one it reverses. Documents are never silently overwritten either. A purge follows the retention schedule through a warning and a 7-day pending window, and leaves a tombstone row behind.