Why the clause matters
Tracking is a behaviour, and behaviour is set at booking. A carrier that has agreed in writing to share a link before pickup and keep it live until delivery will, most of the time, do exactly that. A carrier that was asked for it in a text after the truck loaded will do it when they get around to it. The clause is where the expectation gets set, in the one document every carrier reads before they roll, and that does more than any penalty in it.
It also decides what you can do afterwards. Without a written term, a load that went dark for six hours is a story. With one, and with the timestamps to back it, it is a deduction the carrier agreed to.
What working brokers write
A rate confirmation from a Chicago-area brokerage that crossed our desk recently is typical of the stricter end. Its tracking terms, paraphrased:
- Tracking is required on every load. Any delay or stop in tracking reduces the rate by $500.
- The signed BOL or POD is due within 48 hours of delivery, with a $100 fee for late paperwork.
- The invoice is due within five days, with a $150 fee after that.
- Four hours of free time at each stop; the broker must be told thirty minutes before detention starts.
- Seal number on the BOL before leaving the shipper.
- No double-brokering, no rail, no consolidation with other freight.
Two things about that list are worth noticing. The tracking penalty is the largest number on the page, bigger than the paperwork fees combined, which tells you what that broker has been burned by. And the clause has no definition of tracking, no start time, and no grace. On a strict reading, a driver's phone dying for twenty minutes costs $500, which no broker would actually enforce and no carrier believes they would. A clause nobody expects to be enforced does not change behaviour.
Language you can adapt
This is a starting point, not legal advice. Have your own counsel read whatever you put on a document carriers sign, and check it against your state's rules on deductions from carrier pay.
Tracking. Carrier will provide continuous electronic tracking of the vehicle hauling this load from arrival at the first pickup until departure from the final delivery, by one of: (a) the driver accepting the tracking link or app invitation sent by Broker, or (b) a live-sharing link from Carrier's ELD provider, sent to Broker before pickup and set to remain active until at least 24 hours after the scheduled delivery. Carrier will provide the tractor unit number at booking and will notify Broker before any change of tractor or driver.
Gaps. A tracking gap is any period longer than 60 minutes during which Broker receives no position for the vehicle while the load is in transit, excluding periods the driver is on a required rest break. Broker will notify Carrier of a gap when it occurs. A gap not resolved within 60 minutes of that notice, or any refusal to track, reduces the agreed rate by $250. Total deductions under this clause will not exceed $500 per load.
The pieces doing the work: continuous and the start and end points, so “I texted you a location this morning” does not count; the two named methods, so the carrier picks one at booking instead of debating it at pickup; the 24 hours past delivery on the share link, because the default expiry is the moment you most need it; the unit number, so a tractor swap is not a mystery; the 60-minute definition, so a gap is a fact; the rest-break carve-out, so the clause does not punish the law; the notice-and-cure step, so the deduction follows a conversation; and the cap, so the number is one a carrier will sign.
Making a gap provable
A clause with a 60-minute definition is only worth writing if you can show the sixty minutes. That means a record, per load, of every position received and its time, and of every notice you sent and when. Screenshots of a map do not do it; the carrier's dispatcher will produce their own ELD log showing the truck moving the whole time, and both of you will be right, because their ELD was reporting to them and not to you.
What settles it is a timeline: last position received at 13:41, reminder texted to the driver at 13:56, call to carrier dispatch at 14:30 with the name of who answered, next position at 15:52. Written at the time, not reconstructed. A board that keeps that log automatically, with the alert times in it, is the difference between a deduction and an argument.
Keeping it fair
The purpose is tracked loads, not deductions. A clause that good carriers read as a trap costs you the good carriers, who have other brokers to haul for, and leaves you the ones who sign anything.
Carve out the breaks. A thirty-minute break every eight hours and a ten-hour reset are the law. A phone in a truck stop with no signal during a reset is not a tracking gap, and a clause that says it is will be ignored in full.
Notify before you deduct. The cure step is what makes the clause a request for tracking rather than a discount scheme, and most gaps end within minutes of the driver being asked.
Make it easy to comply. A carrier who has to install something, create an account and find a settings screen will fail the clause by accident. A carrier who can tap one link, or forward the share link their ELD already produces, will comply without thinking about it. The clause should name that path.
The clause and the tooling
The clause and the software are the same policy written in two places. The 60 minutes in the clause is the lost-tracking threshold on the board. The notice in the clause is the reminder the board texts the driver and the alert it raises for the dispatcher. The record in the clause is the load's timeline. If the two disagree, the carrier will find the gap between them.
LoadSignal takes the tracking link on the same screen where a rate confirmation PDF is reviewed into a load, polls supported Samsara and Motive share links, and can text the driver under the stale-tracking rules you enable. It escalates on the schedule you set and keeps positions and notices on the load with its time. The thresholds are settings, so the numbers on your rate confirmation and the numbers on your board can be the same numbers. What to do when the gap happens anyway is the companion to this guide.