For as long as safety scores have existed, their most immediate consequences have come from FMCSA. The agency uses inspection results, violations, and percentile rankings to prioritize carriers for warning letters, closer roadside scrutiny, or investigations. None of that has changed.
What has changed is who else is paying attention.
After the Supreme Court’s May 2026 broker liability ruling, freight brokers have a stronger reason to look closely at the carriers they hire and document why they made that choice. A major broker trade group is already pushing FMCSA to publish a list identifying high-risk carriers, which means the same safety data carriers once viewed mainly as an enforcement concern could now play a role in who gets the load.
There Is No Single FMCSA Safety Score
“Safety score” is common industry shorthand, but FMCSA doesn’t assign one overall numerical score to a carrier.
Instead, the Safety Measurement System, or SMS, organizes performance into seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories, known as BASICs:
- Unsafe Driving: Speeding, reckless or distracted driving, and similar behavior
- Crash Indicator: The frequency and severity of reportable crashes
- Hours-of-Service Compliance: HOS and records-of-duty-status violations
- Vehicle Maintenance: Brake, tire, lighting, securement, and other equipment violations
- Controlled Substances/Alcohol: Drug and alcohol violations and testing failures
- Hazardous Materials Compliance: Placarding, packaging, securement, and related violations
- Driver Fitness: Licensing, medical qualification, training, and driver qualification file issues
Although FMCSA uses these categories to organize safety data and identify carriers that may need monitoring or intervention, property-carrier SMS results are not fully public. Under the FAST Act of 2015, BASIC percentiles and alerts were removed from public view while the CSA program underwent federal review. Brokers and other outside users can still see inspection and crash data, investigation results, and the measures for five BASICs, while Crash Indicator, Hazardous Materials Compliance, and the percentiles and alerts for the other BASICs are not visible to the public. Carriers can log in to view their own complete SMS results.
That distinction matters more after the broker liability ruling. Brokers facing greater pressure to defend their carrier-selection decisions can review inspections, violations, crashes, and public BASIC measures, but they cannot see FMCSA’s complete analysis of that data. That gap helps explain why the broker industry is asking FMCSA for a federal carrier-selection standard and a public list identifying high-risk carriers.
How BASIC Percentiles Work
SMS generally uses 24 months of roadside inspection and reportable crash data to calculate a carrier’s BASIC measures and percentiles. Separately, Acute and Critical Violations found during investigations can also cause a carrier to be prioritized for intervention.
Four factors shape the percentile:
- Severity: Violations receive weights from 1 to 10 based on their association with crash risk. Higher-weighted violations count more, and certain violations that result in an out-of-service order receive an additional weight of 2.
- Recency: Events from the past six months receive a time weight of 3, those from six to 12 months receive a 2, and those from 12 to 24 months receive a 1.
- Exposure: FMCSA adjusts for factors such as relevant inspections, power units, and vehicle miles traveled so raw violation totals are not viewed in isolation.
- Comparison: When enough data exists, a carrier is compared with others that have a similar amount of safety data and assigned a percentile from 0 to 100. A percentile of 75 does not mean 75 out of 100. It means the carrier ranks worse than roughly three-quarters of its comparison group.
For most general property carriers, the intervention threshold is 65% for Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, and Hours-of-Service Compliance, and 80% for the remaining BASICs. While crossing a threshold does not automatically put a carrier out of service or change its formal safety rating, it does mean FMCSA may prioritize the company for additional monitoring or an investigation.
Although FMCSA has announced changes to the SMS methodology, the current system remains in effect until the agency implements the new approach.
A BASIC Percentile Is Not a Safety Rating
BASIC percentiles update monthly and help FMCSA prioritize enforcement. A formal safety rating, on the other hand, is assigned only after a ratable investigation under 49 CFR Part 385.
The three formal ratings are Satisfactory, Conditional, and Unsatisfactory. Carriers that have not received one are shown as unrated, which does not mean they are unsafe. Rather, it simply means FMCSA has not assigned a rating. According to the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), more than 90% of authorized motor carriers fall into that category because most have never been through the kind of investigation that produces one.
That leaves brokers without either a public percentile or a formal rating for most carriers. What they can review is the record behind those results, including inspection and reportable-crash history, related violations, investigation results, and measures for the five public BASICs. That makes it especially important for carriers to understand what their public record shows and be prepared to explain it.
How to Protect Your Safety Record
There is no legitimate shortcut for lowering a BASIC percentile. The practical work is preventing new violations, correcting the systems behind recurring problems, and making sure FMCSA’s data is accurate.
Here are five places to start.
#1: Review your results monthly
Log into SMS and study the inspections and violations behind your numbers. Is the same problem showing up repeatedly? Is one driver, vehicle, route, or terminal responsible for a large share of the issues?
The summary tells you where to look, but the underlying data tells you what needs to change. Make the review a monthly habit rather than something you do after a warning letter arrives.
#2: Fix the operational cause
Most BASIC problems are symptoms of an underlying operational gap. Driver Fitness issues often start with incomplete qualification files, expired licenses, or medical certificates under Part 391, while Unsafe Driving concerns may call for closer MVR monitoring, supervision, or training. Hours-of-Service problems usually require a deeper review of ELD records, unidentified driving, personal conveyance, and dispatch practices under Part 395. Vehicle Maintenance issues, meanwhile, often reveal weaknesses in inspection, repair, or preventive-maintenance processes under Part 396.
Clean inspections matter too. In the inspection-based BASICs, relevant inspections without violations are still included in the calculation, so consistently clean inspections can help improve the measure over time.
#3: Keep MCS-150 data current
FMCSA uses power-unit and vehicle-mileage information when calculating the Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator measures. The biennial update is the minimum. Because SMS relies on this data, update the MCS-150 whenever your fleet size, mileage, or operating details change.
#4: Correct inaccurate data
Use DataQs to challenge inaccurate inspection, violation, crash, investigation, or audit information, and include clear supporting documentation.
Crashes deserve particular attention because they can affect the Crash Indicator even when the carrier may not have been able to prevent them. Eligible crashes can be submitted through FMCSA’s Crash Preventability Determination Program, and crashes found Not Preventable are excluded from the calculation.
#5: Document corrective action
A valid violation will not disappear because you retrained a driver or changed a process. But records showing coaching, repairs, policy changes, closer monitoring, or follow-up audits demonstrate that the issue was addressed rather than ignored. That documentation matters if FMCSA investigates, and it matters just as much when a broker, insurer, or customer asks what happened.
What SMS Does Not Show
SMS reflects inspections, crashes, and investigation findings that have already reached FMCSA. It does not provide a complete review of the compliance systems behind those results.
A carrier may have no elevated BASIC percentiles while still having incomplete Driver Qualification Files, overdue Clearinghouse queries, weak maintenance records, or HOS issues that have not yet surfaced during an inspection or audit.
That is why the SMS record is only one part of evaluating an operation. Carriers need to look behind the data and confirm the programs and documentation are actually in place before FMCSA or a broker finds the gaps for you.
Know What Your Record Says Before Someone Else Reviews It
A good safety record is not built by checking SMS only after a warning letter arrives or a broker starts asking questions. It takes ongoing attention to the inspections, violations, and trends tied to your DOT number, along with the compliance programs and records behind them.
US Compliance Services can help with both sides of that work. Our CSA score monitoring services help carriers track changes in their SMS data and identify developing problems, while our audit support team can review records, uncover gaps, and guide carriers through the preparation process when FMCSA comes calling.
The earlier you review your record, the more time you have to address a rising BASIC percentile, understand what a broker may see, or confirm that your operation is audit-ready before a problem affects your business.
Contact US Compliance Services today to learn more about CSA score monitoring and audit support.
