Hours, Logs & Compliance · Driver Training VideoMedical Card & Self-Certification

More drivers lose their commercial privileges to an expired medical card than to a crash. No wreck, no ticket. Just a date that went by.

Start with what the card is. A DOT physical, done by a medical examiner listed on the FMCSA National Registry. If the examiner isn't on that registry, the exam does not count. Look them up before you book.

A passing exam is good for up to twenty-four months. Up to. The examiner can write it shorter — one year, six months, three months — when something needs watching: blood pressure, blood sugar, sleep apnea, a heart history. A short card isn't a punishment, it's a checkpoint.

Then there's self-certification

You tell your state one of four things: non-excepted interstate, excepted interstate, non-excepted intrastate, or excepted intrastate. Most over-the-road drivers are non-excepted interstate: you cross state lines, so you meet the federal medical standard.

The reporting changed in June of 2025. Your examiner now sends the exam results straight to FMCSA, and FMCSA passes them to your state. You still self-certify. But not every state came online on day one, and if yours hasn't, you are still walking that card into the DMV yourself.

Because when it isn't, a clock starts. Once your certification expires, your state has to begin downgrading your CDL within sixty days, and the commercial privilege comes off your license. Don't wait for that letter to stop driving. You are out the moment the card expires.

Now the exam

Vision: twenty-forty or better in each eye and both together, correction allowed, seventy degrees of field, and you can tell red, green and amber apart. Hearing: a forced whisper at five feet in your better ear, hearing aid allowed.

Your company standard: put the expiration date in your phone with a ninety-day reminder, and book the physical sixty days out. New card in hand? Safety gets a copy the same day. Keep a copy in the truck anyway.