How the data is assembled
Source data
- FMCSA roadside inspection records (driver and vehicle violations).
- FMCSA crash records (fatal, injury, and tow-away events).
- FMCSA carrier authority and registration data (operating status, prior revocations, safety ratings, power units).
- Carrier insurance filings and policy status records where publicly available.
- Load-document-derived shipper/consignee/broker name fields surfaced during inspections.
Entity association
Carriers are associated with a freight entity when inspection-derived load documentation references the entity name. Records are normalized for common variations (legal suffixes, casing, punctuation) but no judgment is made about the contractual or operational relationship between entity and carrier on any specific load.
Risk indicators
Per-carrier operational indicators are derived from the underlying public data:
- Driver and vehicle out-of-service rates relative to inspection count.
- Total, injury, and fatal crash counts.
- FMCSA safety rating and current authority status.
These indicators are not safety scores, fitness determinations, or legal conclusions. They are descriptive summaries of publicly available data.
Why authority alone does not equal safety
A carrier holding active operating authority has met FMCSA registration requirements but has not necessarily been independently audited for operational fitness. Safety ratings reflect the most recent compliance review, which may be years out of date or absent entirely. Inspection and crash context provides additional perspective that authority status alone does not capture.
Data limitations
- Shipper/broker/consignee names recorded at roadside are sometimes incomplete or inconsistent.
- Inspection data captures observed events; absence of a record is not evidence of safety.
- Public datasets refresh on FMCSA cycles and may lag real-world events.
- Users should independently verify any record through official FMCSA systems before relying on it.