Compliance review (safety-rating investigation)
A compliance review is FMCSA's direct examination of a carrier: investigators look at driver qualification files, hours-of-service records, vehicle maintenance, drug-and-alcohol testing programs, and crash registers, on site or remotely. It is the only process that produces a safety rating; no amount of roadside data alone rates a carrier. It is not the New Entrant safety audit, which checks a new carrier's basic safety management and does not produce a rating.
Who gets reviewed
Far fewer carriers than people assume. The agency's investigative capacity covers a small fraction of the registered population, so reviews are prioritized: crash involvement, complaints, and scores crossing intervention thresholds drive most of them. That is why, in FMCSA's 2021 data, about 94% of interstate freight carriers had no rating: most had never had a compliance review.
What it means for vetting
The compliance review explains both the value and the limits of the rating field. A rating is a real regulatory finding, worth taking seriously, but its absence is uninformative, and even a good rating describes the carrier as of the review date. The continuously updated evidence is the roadside record, which exists for rated and unrated carriers alike.
fleetfax reads public FMCSA data and is not affiliated with FMCSA or the U.S. Department of Transportation. This page explains terminology; it is not legal advice.
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