fleetfax RESEARCH
Original findings from our own investigations of the federal carrier datasets.
USING THIS RESEARCHFree to quote and republish figures with credit to fleetfax research and a link to the report. For methodology, underlying data, or questions: support@fleetfax.com.
FEATURED · INSURANCE · JUL 14, 2026
FMCSA moved carrier registration to a new system in May 2026, and the public data files stopped telling the whole story: entire carriers can vanish from the feeds with no marker. We re-checked every carrier that looked insurance-lapsed against the live federal record. 541 of them, about 1 in 18, were insured all along. A vetting tool that reads only the public files is failing insured carriers.
READ THE FINDING → 6 min readMORE FINDINGS
CARRIER VETTING · JUL 7, 2026
New carriers crash less per truck than seasoned ones, not more. The real early-life risk is the washout: about one in seven new authorities is revoked within 18 months, almost always for never completing the mandatory federal audit.
INSURANCE · JUN 30, 2026
When a carrier's insurance is cancelled, the federal record keeps showing it as active for roughly eight weeks before FMCSA acts. We measured that window, and counted the carriers sitting inside it right now.
FRAUD · JUN 23, 2026
Cargo theft has gone white-collar: the load is stolen on paper, with a borrowed identity, a purchased MC number, or a hijacked registration account. The playbook, the numbers, and fourteen years of federal warnings.
FRAUD · JUN 16, 2026
Carriers shut down for cause quietly reopen under a new USDOT number. FMCSA's own disclosure field caught 1 of 175; the public record surfaces the rest, and they already crash at 3.6× the rate.
CARRIER VETTING · JUN 9, 2026
Some carriers declare one or two trucks while hundreds operate under their authority, and the inspection history brokers trust as proof of a real fleet cannot tell the difference. The most extreme cases cluster overwhelmingly in one state.
SAFETY RATINGS · JUN 2, 2026
Roughly 94% of interstate freight carriers have never received a federal safety rating, so an empty rating field proves nothing in either direction. What the number actually means, and how to vet the unrated majority.
LIVE DATA
DAILY DIGEST · UPDATED NIGHTLY
New carriers registered, operating authorities granted and revoked, and out-of-service orders, counted by the day each record entered the federal file. A 90-day trend for each.
OUT OF SERVICE · UPDATED NIGHTLY
The share of recorded roadside inspections that placed a vehicle or driver out of service, national and by state, with a 24-month trend.
FLEET AGE · UPDATED NIGHTLY
The age of the power units that show up in recorded roadside inspections, measured as inspection year minus model year.
METHODOLOGY
These reports draw on the same federal data that powers fleetfax: FMCSA registration, SAFER, and Licensing & Insurance filings. We publish patterns, not names. No individual carrier is identified, and every report shows exactly how we got its numbers.
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