Glossary
Safety rating
A safety rating is FMCSA's official grade of a carrier, issued after an on-site compliance review: Satisfactory, Conditional, or Unsatisfactory. A Conditional or Unsatisfactory rating is a serious finding by the regulator itself, and fleetfax flags it accordingly.
The number that changes how you read it
Most carriers have no rating at all. Per FMCSA's own statistics (Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics, 2022 edition, reporting 2021 data), 646,777 of 690,091 interstate freight carriers eligible for a rating were unrated: 93.7%, roughly 94%. FMCSA simply does not have the audit capacity to review every carrier.
So "Not Rated" is the normal state of the industry, not a red flag. The mistake is reading it as either clearance or condemnation. It means exactly one thing: FMCSA hasn't conducted a compliance review. The carrier's actual safety story lives in the underlying data that exists for every carrier, rated or not: roadside inspections, out-of-service rates, crash records, and authority history. That's the data fleetfax reads. Our full analysis: most carriers have no safety rating; here's what the data shows instead.
Ratings age
A rating, once issued, can stand for years without re-review. A Satisfactory rating issued a decade ago describes the carrier FMCSA audited then, not necessarily the one quoting your load today. fleetfax notes when a rating is older than the nominal audit cycle.
Related terms
CSA & the BASICs
FMCSA's safety scoring system: seven behavior categories. Official percentiles are hidden from the public for all seven; the raw data behind five of them is public.
Out-of-service (OOS) rate
The percentage of a carrier's roadside inspections that ended with the vehicle or driver ordered off the road. Compared against published national averages, it's a core inspection-failure metric.
Conditional & Unsatisfactory ratings
The two adverse FMCSA safety ratings. Conditional means a compliance review found inadequate safety controls but the carrier may keep operating; Unsatisfactory leads to a federal prohibition on operating.
Compliance review (safety audit)
FMCSA's on-site or remote investigation of a carrier's safety management: driver files, hours-of-service records, maintenance, drug-and-alcohol programs. The only path to a safety rating.
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.