Vet

Catch what a clean lookup misses

Reincarnated authorities, rented MC numbers, insurance lapses, safety against peers. The whole federal record on any carrier.

The carrier report

Everything on a carrier, in one report

Authority, insurance, inspections, safety history and ownership, in one report. Each item is stated as a fact from the federal record.

The fleetfax carrier report header: carrier name with a Carrier tag and Monitor, Mark vetted and More buttons, USDOT and MC numbers with a Refresh control and links to the official FMCSA records, then a summary card reading 2 cautions found, naming trucks also operated under another carrier and an authority that was previously revoked, and a row of cards: authority active, common and contract, granted 10 years 6 months ago with a prior revocation, $1M liability in force since April 1, 2026, rated Satisfactory with BASICs within threshold, 38 power units seen in inspections against 42 reported, and fewer crashes per mile than about 65% of peers.

The top of a report. The findings come first, then the record behind it: authority, insurance on file, safety against peers, and the trucks actually seen on the road. Cautions are named, not scored, and each one opens to the filing it came from. The line under the name links straight to the official record. The report is free on any carrier, within the daily limit.

Risk flags

Fraud patterns checked on every report

Most freight fraud leaves marks in the federal record. Every report checks for the patterns brokers get burned by and lists what it finds as cautions. Some of the checks:

Authority was previously revoked Caution

The carrier's own authority was revoked in the last five years. The report names the revocation so you can judge it.

Officer also listed on a revoked carrier Serious

An officer on file, with the same address or phone, is also listed on a carrier whose authority was revoked.

Trucks also operated under other carriers

Trucks inspected under this USDOT number were also inspected running under other carriers, which can mean the number is lent to unrelated trucks.

New authority Caution

Active for less than six months.

The fraud playbook

How stolen loads actually start

These plays start at a desk, not a truck stop. The thief books the load as somebody else, or as a company built to be burned, and the freight is gone before anyone knows to look. Each play leaves marks in the federal record. Here is where each one shows up in the report.

Carrier impersonation

A fraudster picks a real carrier with a clean record and books as them, from a lookalike email domain, with a phone number that rings at the thief's desk. The paperwork gets signed under the stolen name and the load disappears.

In the reportThe carrier's contact details as filed on the federal record, so your callback goes to the number the carrier filed, not the number in the email.

Chameleon reopenings

A carrier shut down for cause reopens under a new USDOT number with a clean record, sometimes at the same address, under the same people. Weeks of clean, small loads build trust before the high-value freight gets diverted.

In the reportA new number has no history of its own, so the report checks its people: an officer who, with the same address or phone, sits on a revoked carrier is flagged. On Pro, Graph explorer names the carriers sharing its officer, phone or address whose registration or authority was revoked or went inactive. See how often the official disclosure field misses these.

The holiday bust-out

Theft rings time the play for long weekends: loads staged early, skeleton crews at the dock, and days before a receiver notices anything is missing. A carrier that looked fine at onboarding months ago is exactly what the play counts on.

In the reportThe record as it stands the day you pull it, with new authority and a recent revocation of its carrier authority flagged. Pull it again before the holiday load to see the record as it stands that day.

Peer safety percentiles

Measured against carriers with a similar record

Ten violations mean one thing at five hundred inspections and another at twelve. fleetfax compares each carrier against others with a similar inspection record.

The fleetfax report view of FMCSA BASIC percentiles for a carrier: a summary strip reading all BASICs within threshold with the crash rate per million miles against the federal benchmark, the vehicle out-of-service rate against the national rate, and a Satisfactory safety rating; then one row per category, hours of service at the 8th percentile, crash rate 32nd, vehicle maintenance 35th, unsafe driving 2nd, hazmat not scored. Each row carries its violation count and the inspections behind it.

Where the record allows, each carrier gets a percentile. Each measure compares the carrier with its own group of similar carriers. Crash rate is per million miles, against carriers that also had recordable crashes. The status column shows where the percentile sits against FMCSA's alert threshold. A higher percentile means more violations than peers, not a pass or a fail. FMCSA keeps its own percentiles hidden, so these are fleetfax estimates built from the same public records, not official CSA scores.

Authority & insurance history

Every filing and lapse, going back years

The full run of authority events and insurance filings, side by side, so a gap that closed two years ago still shows.

The fleetfax Authority and insurance tab for a carrier under an out-of-service order: authority inactive and no liability (BIPD) filing on record, common and contract authority inactive, census out-of-service date Mar 16, 2026; below it the authority history, granted Dec 3, 2025, revocation filed Feb 6, 2026 and revoked Mar 2, 2026, and the insurance history, a $750K liability policy cancelled Feb 24, 2026 with no replacement on file.

Granted in December, revoked by March. An authority barely three months old, next to the insurance ledger that explains it: a $750K policy cancelled with no replacement on file. A packet from onboarding would still say this carrier was covered; the report shows the record as it stands today.

Insurance and authority checked against FMCSA's live record

That is why a report can differ from FMCSA’s public snapshot on those fields.

Read the research

Observed fleet

The trucks actually seen on the road

Counted from roadside inspections, next to the number the carrier reports.

The fleetfax fleet check flagged 'Running more than registered': the carrier reports 2 power units while 469 distinct power units were seen in inspections over 24 months, and 873 units including trailers were first seen in the last 6 months.

2 reported, 469 observed. This carrier reports 2 power units to FMCSA; inspections saw 469 distinct trucks in 24 months, so the report flags it. Reported and observed are two separate facts, and not every truck gets inspected, so a gap is a reason to ask the carrier, not proof of anything by itself.

The fleetfax Fleet tab observed-equipment table: each row is one truck or trailer seen in a roadside inspection, with its VIN and the make, model, year, and class decoded from it, plus when it was last seen.

Decoded from roadside-inspection VINs. Each row is one truck or trailer seen in an inspection, with the VIN it was read from and the make, year, and class decoded from it.

Operating map

Where a carrier was observed

Built from where the carrier's trucks have actually been inspected, not from a service area somebody filled in on a form.

The fleetfax operating map for a regional carrier: 356 roadside inspections across 176 counties in 17 states, most active in Alabama, Florida and Texas, with equipment types seen at the roadside; below it the map, 300 mapped inspections clustered along I-10, I-20, I-59, I-65, I-75 and I-85, recency-graded dots, a ringed domicile marker in Abbeville, AL, and an activity-over-time histogram.

176 counties, 300 mapped inspections. A regional carrier that works the Southeast and stays there. Every dot is a roadside inspection, placed where the truck was actually stopped; the dashed lines are the corridors those stops keep landing on, and the ringed marker is the carrier's registered home base.

Product views: every carrier name, number, date and amount is fictional; the layouts and wording are the product's own.

Beyond one report

Vetting one carrier is the easy part

The report stays free on every carrier, with a daily limit. A free account checks any carrier you open against the fleetfax starter policy. Pro is for the days you're running a whole book: your own saved rules and no daily limit on reports.

Policy

Your own policy is a Pro feature. Build your qualification rules from 17 checks over the federal record, with your threshold and grading on each one. Open a carrier and see whether it meets your minimums and which rule decides it. Where the record can't settle a rule, the report says so. A free account checks any carrier you open against the fleetfax starter policy, rule by rule.

Each rule reads the federal record. The numbers are yours, and so is the grading. fleetfax only shows how the record compares with them.

fleetfax Pro

Your own saved policy, no daily limit on reports, and bulk vetting of up to 200 carriers a day.

See Pro