Original analysis of the federal carrier record and the industry's published data.
Using this research. Free to quote and republish figures with credit to fleetfax research and a link to the report. For methodology, underlying data, or questions: contact@fleetfax.com.
Featured · Fraud · Jul 17, 2026
Cargo theft has gone white-collar: the load is stolen on paper, with a borrowed identity, a purchased MC number, or a hijacked FMCSA registration account. Strategic, identity-based theft grew from 8% of cargo crime in 2020 to about a third by 2024, and reported losses reached $725 million in 2025. The playbook, the numbers, and fourteen years of federal warnings.
Cargo-theft losses reported to CargoNet, US and Canada · Verisk CargoNet annual analyses
The theft that grew is the paper kind.
6 reports, newest first
Insurance · Jul 17, 2026
FMCSA moved carrier registration to a new system in May 2026, and the public feeds can now drop insured carriers with no marker. fleetfax re-checked 9,849 lapsed-looking carriers against the live federal record: 541, about 1 in 18, were insured when checked live.
Carriers marked “insurance lapsed” in the public files, re-checked against the live federal record
Carrier vetting · Jul 17, 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 eventually revoked through the new-entrant audit program. Across all new-entrant revocations on record, 88% were for refusing the mandatory federal safety audit or not responding to it, and 12% for failing it.
1 of every 7 new authorities is eventually revoked through the new-entrant program
Insurance · Jul 17, 2026
When a carrier's insurance is cancelled, the federal record can keep showing it as active for weeks; in fleetfax's June 30 check, none stayed active past about eight weeks. fleetfax measured that window, and counted the carriers inside it on June 30, 2026.
≈8 weeks in between, still showing active authority
Fraud · Jul 17, 2026
New carriers (registered since January 2024) that share a phone plus an officer or address with a carrier FMCSA shut down for cause are 3.6 times as likely to already have a crash on record: 9.1% vs 2.55% of all new carriers (June 2026). Of the 175 matched, 1 listed a prior carrier in FMCSA's self-reported prior-USDOT field.
Share already carrying a crash record: matched new carriers versus all new carriers · 3.6 times as likely
Carrier vetting · Jul 17, 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.
Trucks per carrier: declared on the federal form vs. observed in inspections
Safety ratings · Jul 7, 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.
Counted from the federal file every night
Daily digest · Updated nightly
New carriers registered, operating authority grants, authority suspension notices, 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 monthly
How old the typical carrier's trucks are, based on the trucks that show up in recorded roadside inspections.
These reports draw on the same federal data that powers fleetfax: FMCSA registration, SAFER, and Licensing & Insurance filings. The cargo-theft report draws instead on published government and industry sources, and the safety-rating report's headline figure is FMCSA's own published statistic; each is cited. Patterns, not names. No individual carrier is identified, and every report shows its method. Methodology
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fleetfax reads public FMCSA data and is not affiliated with FMCSA or the U.S. Department of Transportation. Research is information, not legal advice.
