Built in the ELD, not in court
Reptile-theory discovery has rebuilt commercial-auto litigation around hours-of-service, following-distance and CSA scores. The carriers losing are the ones who do not pull telematics until day sixty. Owl reads the ELD, the dashcam, the dispatch log and the FMCSA record on intake, synced to the second.
42 min
HOS gap, ELD vs. paper logs
<1.5s, 8 of 10
Following distance below threshold
BASIC: 4 / 7
CSA SMS Unsafe Driving + HOS flagged
Three AI agents on a Commercial Auto loss. Reading. Cross-referencing. Answering.
One loss: a 42-minute HOS gap, 8 minutes under 1.5s following distance, a $4.2M demand.
Anonymized composite: Class 8 tractor-trailer, rear-impact on I-44, two claimants. Demand received 9 weeks post-DOL alleging spinal injury, lost earnings and “egregious safety practices.”
External data only. None of this lives in your CMS. Owl gathered it from public records, professional networks, registries and the open web, then resolved it to this claimant.
FMCSA-pulled ELD shows 9.2 hrs driving day of loss; paper logs show 8.5 hrs, a 42-minute discrepancy. Carrier weekly cap exceeded by 1.4 hrs in the preceding 8-day cycle. Falsification doctrine exposure on §395.8(e). Dispatcher chat (preserved on Samsara) shows pressure to make delivery window.
Geotab telematics shows <1.5s following distance for 8 of preceding 10 minutes. Plaintiff-side discovery target. No braking input until 0.6s pre-impact (Bendix Wingman ADAS event log). Carrier-fleet driver score for unit operator is in the 22nd percentile across the fleet for distance-keeping over 90 days.
Carrier USDOT 2,148,xxx. CSA SMS percentile alerts on Unsafe Driving (78th) and HOS Compliance (82nd) BASICs. Three roadside inspections in last 24mo with HOS violations on this unit. Two prior crashes on the SAFER record (one PD, one BI).
Driver MVR (with PSP consent) shows two moving violations in last 36mo (one careless driving, one following-too-close). Prior-employer pull (3 years) shows separation from a prior carrier within 90 days of a preventable rear-end. Negligent-entrustment exposure if hire-process documentation is thin.
Counsel has 8 commercial-MV verdicts > $5M in the last 60 months in this venue. Three on similar fact patterns (rear-impact, HOS issue, ADAS data). Demand-letter language fingerprint matches 4 prior cases that resolved at $1.6M – $2.2M when full ADAS + ELD data was produced day-30.
Material exposure. The 42-minute HOS discrepancy on the day of loss combined with 8 minutes of <1.5s following distance preceding the collision creates a negligence-per-se argument under 49 CFR §395 plus a reptile-theory safety-rules theme that this venue’s plaintiff bar runs effectively. ADAS Bendix Wingman log shows no braking until 0.6s pre-impact. Recommended initial reserve: $1.84M against $4.2M demand, with $750K floor and $2.4M ceiling depending on contributory of lead claimant. Preserve ELD, ADAS, dispatcher chat and dashcam under formal litigation hold today; spoliation is the loser here, not liability. MCS-90 endorsement on certificate but inapplicable to BI in non-interstate-cargo theory.
Defensible but not dismissable. Driver hire 2024-03 included §391.23 prior-employer pulls, road test and §391.21 application: process is documented. PSP report at hire is in file. However: MVR at hire showed one prior moving violation; second violation accrued 2024-11 (post-hire) and was not flagged because the carrier’s annual MVR re-pull (§391.25) was performed late on 2025-04 (4 months past anniversary). That gap is the negligent-supervision angle counsel will work. Recommended pivot: stipulate to vicarious liability to moot negligent-entrustment claim; contest comparative fault on lead claimant, who was 14mph below posted in left lane (Geotab on lead vehicle pulled via LexisNexis Telematics Exchange).
What the world says about your Commercial Auto claimants, none of which lives in your CMS.
Internal claim data is half the picture: it tells you what the claimant told you. OwlSignal continuously gathers external data (public records, professional and corporate registries, court dockets, social and open web) and matches it back to the claimant. These are the families that move the needle on Commercial Auto.
Carrier-fleet telematics (Geotab, Samsara, Lytx, Omnitracs), ADAS event logs (Bendix Wingman, Mobileye), ELD exports, weigh-station bypass data, dispatcher chat: synced to the second against police and dashcam.
FMCSA SAFER carrier records, CSA SMS BASIC percentiles, roadside inspection history, PSP crash + inspection record, USDOT operating-authority status: the public-record carrier-safety profile.
State MVR pulls, FMCSA PSP reports, CDL status, drug-and-alcohol clearinghouse, prior-employer §391.23 pulls: what the driver record actually says, refreshed against the carrier’s annual cycle.
Plaintiff-bar matter history, nuclear-verdict patterns by venue, demand-letter fingerprinting, jurisdictional verdict-history graphs: the data on the other side that decides reserve and authority.
External EHR pulls and HL7 exchanges that surface diagnoses, treatments and pain-management history the demand letter does not disclose. Reframes apportionment from a debate to a documented fact pattern.
IRS 4506-T income reconstruction, state UI wage records, 1099 reconciliation, employer payroll filings. Closes the gap between claimed wage-loss and substantiated earning capacity.
Numbers from P&C carriers running Owl on Commercial Auto in production.
Built for the regulatory shape of Commercial Auto.
Lives where your Commercial Auto files live.
Claim systems
Guidewire ClaimCenter, Duck Creek, Origami, Ventiv, in-house
Telematics
Geotab, Samsara, Lytx, Omnitracs, LexisNexis Telematics Exchange
Estimating
CCC ONE, Mitchell, Audatex, Truck Pro Sims
FMCSA / CSA
SAFER, CSA SMS, PSP, D&A Clearinghouse, §391.23
Document intake
Box, OnBase, Documentum, ImageRight, Kofax
Identity & SSO
Okta, Azure AD, PingFederate, SAML, SCIM provisioning
Bring us a closed Commercial Auto file. We’ll show you the ELD, the ADAS and the verdict pattern you missed.
Two-week pilot. Your records, your tenant, your fleet partners. We measure cycle time, reserve accuracy, spoliation-hold timing and nuclear-verdict catch against your own ground truth.