Gap assessments and reviews

NSC mock audit for carriers in Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan

Also called: National Safety Code audit readiness

An NSC mock audit is a practice run of the audit your province does on a National Safety Code carrier. We sample your drivers and vehicles, check their files the same way the provincial audit does, and hand you a scored gap list with fixes before the real one.

See a sample report

Quoted per site. Call 1-800-440-6650 to talk to a safety expert.

Who does the work: More than eight years of fleet safety surveys on trucking and transport companies.

Who asks for an NSC mock audit?

Carriers with an audit coming

You have a letter, a phone call, or a date. A mock audit a few weeks out shows exactly what the auditor will find while there is still time to fix it.

Carriers after a poor result

A follow-up audit usually comes months later. We check whether the fixes you made actually closed the gaps, file by file.

Growing fleets

Adding drivers and units is when files slip. A mock audit resets the baseline before the province looks.

Customers and insurers

Some shippers, prime contractors and insurers want an independent read on a carrier before they rely on it.

What do we check?

Driver qualifications and records

  • Driver licence class and endorsements match the work
  • Driver abstracts on file and current
  • Driver files complete for every sampled driver

Hours of service

  • Daily logs complete and within the limits
  • Supporting documents kept with the logs
  • Carrier monitoring of driver logs, with records to show it

Trip inspection, records and maintenance

  • Trip inspection reports completed and defects acted on
  • Maintenance schedule followed for every sampled unit
  • Maintenance records kept for the required time

Safety practices

  • Written policies the drivers actually know
  • Training and orientation records
  • Collision and incident records and follow-up

How is an NSC audit scored?

Points are deducted question by question, for every driver and vehicle in the sample. We show you exactly where yours would go. We never quote a pass mark.

Where the points sit

The audit has four sections. Hours of service has the most questions that repeat for every sampled driver, and in an audit report we worked from it carried about half of all the available points.

  • Driver qualifications and records
  • Hours of service, including monitoring by the carrier
  • Trip inspection, records and maintenance
  • Safety practices

Why one habit costs so much

Each question is scored for every driver in the sample. Move the sliders to see how a single missing record repeats. Points per driver are illustrative.

30 of 45 points lost on this one question

Sample report

What does the report look like?

Four pages from a sample report, built on invented data. Real reports follow the same order: the summary first, then the scores, every improvement in full, and a roadmap to close them.
Sample Carrier Ltd.Sample

Executive summary

9 of 15 drivers and 6 of 11 units, selected at random

65

Points deducted in this sample

Most points are being lost on hours of service monitoring, and that is fixable.

What is working

  • Driver licences and classes correct for every sampled driver
  • Trip inspections completed daily
  • Maintenance schedule in place for power units

Top priorities

  • Start a documented weekly log review
  • Keep supporting documents with the logs
  • Close the loop on reported defects
Invented data for illustrationPage 1
1 of 4

Sample gap list

What does a gap look like?

Every gap names what we found, the evidence behind it, the fix, and the reference it comes from. Filter the sample list or open any row.

Showing 7 of 7 sample gaps, 65 points deducted

  • Evidence we checked
    Logs are complete, but no review notes, sign-offs or exception reports exist for those drivers.
    The fix
    Start a weekly log review with a dated sign-off per driver, and keep exception reports with the logs.
    Reference
    BC MVAR Division 37
    Target
    Within 30 days · 30 points back when fixed

How does it work?

  1. Scoping questions

    Fleet size, driver count, the province that issued your certificate, and when your audit is booked. Facts only.

  2. Driver and vehicle lists

    You upload your full driver and unit lists through a secure link. We pick the sample at random, the same way the provincial audit does.

  3. File review

    Driver files, logs and supporting documents, trip inspections and maintenance records for every sampled driver and unit, checked question by question.

  4. Yard visit, if you want one

    We can come to the yard to look at units, walk the shop and talk with dispatch about how logs are monitored.

  5. Scored report and debrief

    Points lost by section, the files behind each deduction, and a fix list ranked by how many points each fix wins back.

What does it not cover?

  • Not your NSC safety rating. The public rating is built mostly from on-road events like inspections, tickets and collisions over time. A records audit cannot predict or change that history.

  • Not a pass mark. We tell you what the audit checks and where you would lose points. We do not quote a percentage that guarantees a result.

  • Not a replacement for the provincial audit. It is a practice run so the real one holds no surprises.

Frequently asked questions

What does an NSC audit check?

Provincial NSC audits look at four areas: driver qualifications and records, hours of service (including how the carrier monitors logs), vehicle trip inspections and maintenance records, and general safety practices. The auditor samples drivers and vehicles and checks each file against a fixed list of questions.

Why does hours of service matter so much?

Each question is worth points for every driver sampled, and hours of service has the most questions that repeat per driver. In an audit report we worked from, hours of service carried about half of all the available points. One monitoring gap repeated across every sampled driver can cost more than every other section combined.

Do you cover Alberta and Saskatchewan as well as BC?

Yes. BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan each run their own NSC audit with their own forms, all built on the national NSC standards. We scope the mock audit to the province that issued your certificate and use that province's rules as the reference.

What score do I need to pass?

We do not quote a pass mark. No provincial source we can cite publishes one for the audit itself, and your public safety rating also depends on your on-road record. What we give you is the list of deductions an auditor would make today and how to remove them.

Can you check our crane or equipment work at the same time?

Yes. If you run cranes or other equipment, we can check that work against the provincial OHS rules on the same visit. It is reported separately, because it sits outside the NSC audit.

How far ahead of the real audit should we book?

Four to eight weeks gives you time to fix files before the auditor samples them. If your audit is sooner, book anyway and we will rank the fixes by how many points they save.

Related services

Other gap assessments and reviews

All gap assessments

Book an NSC mock audit

Tell us what your customer, regulator or certifying partner is asking for. We will scope it and quote it per site, usually the same business day.

Call a safety expert: 1-800-440-6650