Full explanation
A safety rating is an official determination issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration after conducting a comprehensive compliance review (CR) of a motor carrier's operations. Ratings fall into three categories: Satisfactory (adequate safety management controls), Conditional (areas of safety management that need improvement), and Unsatisfactory (inadequate safety management controls that pose a risk to public safety). An Unsatisfactory rating requires the carrier to take corrective action within a specified timeframe; failure to do so results in an operations out-of-service order. However, it's important to note that the majority of carriers have never received a compliance review and therefore have no safety rating — the absence of a rating does not indicate poor safety. FMCSA conducts approximately 15,000 compliance reviews annually, prioritizing carriers with high BASIC scores, complaints, or crash histories. Truck Graph displays safety ratings where available and uses the data as one input to its composite risk score.
Source: FMCSA: Safety Rating Process
Frequently asked questions
What happens with an Unsatisfactory safety rating?
Carriers rated Unsatisfactory have 45-60 days (depending on carrier type) to demonstrate corrective action. If they fail to improve, FMCSA issues an operations out-of-service order that shuts down the carrier until issues are resolved.
Do most carriers have a safety rating?
No. Only carriers that have undergone a full FMCSA compliance review receive an official safety rating. The majority of the 757,000+ active carriers have never been formally rated.
Can shippers use carriers without a safety rating?
Yes. Having no safety rating is the default state for most carriers and doesn't indicate a problem. Shippers should evaluate unrated carriers using other available data: inspection results, OOS rates, insurance status, and authority history.
Related terms
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