The record a carrier needs is the National Safety Code print, not the public one — and Division 37 says how recent it has to be.
Key takeaways
A BC carrier orders the National Safety Code (NSC) abstract — the commercial print, not the ordinary public one. ICBC describes the NSC abstract as the record “a driver applying for employment purposes” needs: the (N) print showing basic driving history and any commercial vehicle-related convictions in the last five years. Individual drivers order theirs through My ICBC; fleets order in bulk using the National Safety Code Abstract Request form, as ICBC sets out on its driving record page.
Then you have to keep it. Under section 37.67 of Division 37 of BC’s Motor Vehicle Act Regulations, a carrier must hold, at its principal place of business in British Columbia, a transcript of the driving record of every driver it employs or engages in BC — dated the later of the driver’s start date and one year from the previous transcript. In practice that means an abstract on file at hire and a fresh one every twelve months.
ICBC issues several driving records and they are not interchangeable. The ordinary driving record — what most people mean by “driver’s abstract” — is the public (P) print. ICBC describes it as a record of basic driving history in the last five years, and lists its typical uses as applying for a licence after moving out of BC, joining a car-share, or volunteering to drive on school activities.
The commercial driving record is the NSC abstract, the (N) print. ICBC is explicit that this is the one for employment purposes, and that it carries commercial vehicle-related convictions as well as the basic history. A safety officer auditing your driver files is looking for the commercial print. A public abstract in the folder is a gap, not a record.
Two other ICBC products get confused with these. An insurance and claims history record covers coverage and claims, and is what a next insurer asks for. A driver factor report is a rating document — a three-decimal number reflecting driving experience and crash history, available for personal and commercial rate classes. Neither is a driver abstract, and neither satisfies section 37.67.
There are three routes, and which you use depends on whether the driver is already yours.
The driver orders it. Through My ICBC a driver can request a driver’s abstract, an insurance and claims history record, or a commercial driving record for their employer. ICBC delivers the record by email, digitally certified — and warns on the same page that email is not a secure method of transmitting sensitive personal information, offering phone, mail and fax as alternatives. If a candidate forwards you a PDF, that warning is the reason to treat the file the way you would any other sensitive personal record.
The driver directs it to you. ICBC will send records to the driver or to another organisation of their choice by phone, mail or fax; the request goes through the driver licensing information line with the driver’s licence number to hand.
You order in bulk. ICBC provides a National Safety Code Abstract Request form for fleet operators, submitted by email, by fax to 250-978-8012, or by post to ICBC Licensing Support Services, Box 3750, 910 Government Street, Victoria BC V8W 3Y5. This is the route that makes an annual refresh cycle manageable once you are past a handful of trucks.
The regulation is more specific than most carriers realise, and the specifics are what an audit tests.
At application. Section 37.08 requires an applicant for a safety certificate to provide, along with the application form, fee and safety plan, a transcript of the driving record of each driver proposed to be employed or engaged in BC, issued by the responsible agency in the jurisdiction that licensed the driver, dated no later than the driver’s date of employment or engagement. A driver licensed in Alberta needs an Alberta transcript, not a BC one.
On an ongoing basis. Section 37.67(1)(a) sets the annual cycle described above. Section 37.67(1)(b)(ii) also requires records of the notification of the carrier of any accidents, violations or convictions for each driver while employed or engaged — a separate obligation from the abstract itself.
The fifteen-day rule. Section 37.67(2) puts a duty on the driver: the driver must deliver those accident, violation and conviction records to the carrier within 15 days. Most small fleets have no mechanism for this at all. It belongs in the driver’s written terms and in a monthly reminder, because when it fails, the failure shows up in your file, not the driver’s.
How long you keep it. Section 37.68 requires the section 37.67 records to be kept readily accessible for inspection and audit for the calendar year in which they were made and the following four calendar years.
Worked example: a six-truck BC fleet's annual cycle
A Surrey carrier runs six tractors and eight drivers, two of them licensed in Alberta. At hire, each driver’s NSC abstract goes on file, issued by the jurisdiction that licensed them — ICBC for the six BC drivers, the Alberta registry for the other two. The hire date is recorded beside each.
Twelve months later the clock in section 37.67(1)(a)(ii) runs out on the first two drivers. Rather than chase them individually, the safety administrator batches the BC drivers onto one National Safety Code Abstract Request form each quarter, so nobody is ever more than three months from a refresh, and diarises the two out-of-province drivers separately because those come from a different registry.
Separately, a one-line standing instruction goes into every driver’s terms: any accident, violation or conviction is reported to the office within 15 days, in writing. That single line is what turns section 37.67(2) from an obligation nobody has heard of into a file an inspector can read.
Section 37.70 lets an inspector enter the place where the section 37.67 records are kept, during business hours, and conduct a compliance review or audit to determine whether the carrier meets Division 37 — and makes obstructing that inspector an offence. Provincial commercial vehicle enforcement is administered through the Province of British Columbia’s vehicle safety and enforcement branch. The practical consequence is simple: the abstract is not a hiring formality you can catch up on later. It is a record that is expected to already exist, dated, on the day someone asks.
The other half of the file is national. Driver and carrier records are one of the National Safety Code standards — Standard 7, Carrier and Driver Profiles — which every province and territory adopts by reference or mirrors in its own law. That is why an abstract obligation you meet in BC looks recognisably similar when you add a truck plated in Alberta.
Three failures account for most of what turns up in an audit, and none of them is about safety judgement.
The first is a missing renewal: an abstract dated at hire, then nothing, because no one owned the twelve-month clock. The second is the wrong print — a public abstract standing in for the NSC one. The third is an out-of-province driver whose transcript was ordered from ICBC instead of the registry that licensed them, which section 37.67(1)(a) does not accept.
All three are date-and-document problems, which is exactly the kind of work software should carry. Extracting the issue date and driver name from an abstract PDF, filing it against the right driver, and raising a task eleven months later is a mechanical task; deciding whether a conviction pattern means a driver should stay in a truck is not, and stays with your safety person.
No — the commercial abstract is ordered by the driver through My ICBC, or released to another organisation on the driver’s instruction, or requested by a fleet operator on the NSC form. The driver’s involvement is built into all three routes. Handle the resulting record as sensitive personal information; the general principles employers work to are set out in this employee-privacy overview, and screening practice more broadly in this hiring guide.
ICBC describes both the public print and the NSC print as covering the previous five years. The claims history record is different — that can be requested for up to the last 20 years.
Section 37.67(1)(a) reaches every driver “employed or otherwise engaged” by the carrier in British Columbia. The words “otherwise engaged” are doing deliberate work there: an abstract obligation does not disappear because the driver invoices you.
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