DOTScreener Blog
Carrier vetting, equipment intelligence, and broker liability — in plain English.
Compliance updates, legal analysis, and operational guides for freight brokers navigating the post-Montgomery landscape.
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The Oversize Carrier Vetting Gap That FMCSA Won't Fill For You
FMCSA authority doesn't say a word about whether a carrier's state oversize permits are current. Most brokers don't ask. Here's what to check before you tender a permit load.
Not Rated Isn't a Safety Rating. It's the Absence of One.
The majority of active motor carriers in FMCSA's system are 'Not Rated' — and most brokers treat that as a neutral signal. It isn't neutral. It's the absence of a formal evaluation, and it tells you almost nothing about whether the carrier is safe.
Your Carrier's OOS Rate Looked Fine. The OOS Order Is Why You're Getting Sued.
Most brokers check the OOS rate in SAFER and call it done. But a carrier's historical OOS rate doesn't tell you whether they're currently under an active out-of-service order. Those are completely different things, and only one of them matters at load tender.
Your Trusted Carrier Just Got Bought. Do You Re-Vet or Cruise on the Relationship?
When a carrier's MCS-150 shows new principals after an acquisition, your old approval doesn't cover the new management. Here's what to check and why skipping the re-vet is the exact gap that shows up in deposition.
Your Carrier Also Has a Broker License. You Probably Don't Know That.
A growing number of carriers hold a second FMCSA authority as a broker — and they use it to re-tender your loads to carriers you never vetted. Standard MC pulls don't catch this. Here's what dual authority actually means, why it matters after Montgomery, and the one question you should ask before any load tender.
The ACORD 25 Has Five Lines That Matter. Most Brokers Read Zero of Them.
Brokers collect COIs like a compliance ritual, but the ACORD 25 has five specific fields that actually tell you whether you're covered—and most people gloss over all of them. Here's how to read the document like it matters.
Your Carrier's Vehicle Maintenance BASIC Score Is Hiding the Most Important Thing About Them
The Vehicle Maintenance BASIC percentile tells you a carrier has a problem. It doesn't tell you which problem. A 74th percentile driven by brake violations is a crash risk. The same score driven by lighting and reefer-unit violations is a cargo-damage risk. Brokers who can't tell those apart are booking blind.
The BASIC Score Plaintiff Lawyers Pull First Is Not the Crash Indicator
Most brokers watch the Crash Indicator BASIC because it says the word 'crash.' Plaintiff lawyers watch the Unsafe Driving BASIC because it's the one that proves the carrier was operating dangerously before your load ever moved. That distinction matters when you're sitting across from a deposition.
The Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse Check You Can't Run — And What Brokers Miss
Brokers can't query the FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse directly — and most don't know what to ask instead. Here's what the Clearinghouse actually is, what it shows, and how to build a defensible D&A compliance file without access to the registry.
The Three Hazmat Checks Most Brokers Never Run
Tendering a placardable load isn't the same as tendering a pallet of cell phones. The checklist is longer, the regulatory citations are specific, and most brokers skip all of it. Here's what you're supposed to verify — and why not doing it is a different kind of expensive now.
You Booked a 14-Month Authority. Here's the Paper Trail That Decides Whether That Was a Mistake.
The 18-month rule is a heuristic, not a law — and sometimes you have to book the carrier anyway. The brokers who do it safely build a specific set of compensating controls into the file. Here's what that looks like.
Your Carrier Has Active Insurance. Do You Know Who's Actually On the Hook?
The green check in your carrier-lookup app tells you insurance is on file. The FMCSA Licensing and Insurance database tells you who filed it, when it was filed, and whether a cancellation notice is already in motion. Those are different questions, and one of them decides whether you're actually covered after a bad day.
Your High-Value Load Protocol Is Solving the Wrong Problem
Most high-value freight protocols fixate on cargo coverage limits and GPS requirements while missing the actual threat: load diversion and carrier impersonation. Here's the verification sequence that addresses the real risk.
The Pre-Trip Your Carrier Skipped Left a Trail. Most Brokers Never Look for It.
The Vehicle Maintenance BASIC isn't just an equipment score — it's a window into whether a carrier's drivers are actually doing pre-trip inspections before they roll. Most brokers never read it that way. Post-Montgomery, that's a mistake with a dollar amount attached.
SAFER Shows 3 Crashes. Their Accident Register Shows 7. Which Number Goes to the Jury?
The SAFER Crash Indicator gives you a percentile. The carrier's 49 CFR § 390.15 accident register gives you the actual crash timeline — and the gap between those two records is exactly where plaintiffs' lawyers go to build a negligence case.
Fourteen Trucks on the MCS-150. Three in the Inspection Record. What That Gap Is Telling You.
A carrier's self-reported fleet count on their MCS-150 filing and their inspection-confirmed VIN count are often very different numbers. The gap isn't a clerical error — it's a signal about how this carrier actually operates, and ignoring it post-Montgomery is a mistake.
What the Deposition Looks Like When You Did the Vetting Right
Every post-Montgomery blog post focuses on the broker who couldn't answer the deposition questions. Here's what the broker who could answer looked like — question by question, document by document — and what made the difference.
Pick Up the Phone: The Five-Minute Call That Catches What Every Automated Check Misses
Automated carrier vetting is table stakes now. The check that still catches double-brokers, ghost MCs, and carrier fraud that no database will flag? A two-minute call to the dispatch number on SAFER — not the number in the carrier packet.
New MC, Same Trucks, Same Officers: The Chameleon Carrier Play and How to Catch It
A clean new MC number doesn't mean a clean carrier — same people, same trucks, new entity is a common play to escape a bad safety record. Here's how I catch it before I tender a load.
Two Crashes, Two Totally Different Carriers: What the FMCSA Crash Counter Misses
FMCSA counts reportable crashes but doesn't record fault or severity beyond fatality/injury. Two carriers with the same crash count can carry wildly different risk — here's how I actually read that section of a carrier's safety file.
BMC-91 vs BMC-91X: The Insurance Filing Difference That Decides Whether You Get Paid
Most brokers verify a carrier has $1M in liability coverage and stop there. The form code on that FMCSA filing — BMC-91 or BMC-91X — tells you whether that coverage is backed by a state guaranty fund or whether you're on your own if the insurer goes sideways.
A Conditional Safety Rating Isn't a Yellow Light. It's a Document.
Most brokers treat a Conditional FMCSA safety rating as a yellow light and move on. It isn't. It's a documented audit finding — and after Montgomery, those two words mean something different in discovery.
Zero Inspections in SAFER Doesn't Mean Clean. It Means Nobody Has Looked.
When FMCSA's SMS shows 'Insufficient Data' across every BASIC, most brokers read that as a neutral signal. It isn't. A carrier with zero inspections in the last two years hasn't been cleared — they just haven't been checked. Here's why that distinction matters, and what to do about it.
The ACORD 25 Is a Certificate, Not Insurance Verification
Brokers collect ACORD 25s like they're proof of coverage. They're not. A certificate is a snapshot that can be wrong, stale, or missing entirely the coverage gap that will blow up a cargo claim. Here's what to actually check — and where to check it.
Your Carrier File Looks Fine. Here's What a Plaintiff's Lawyer Sees That You Don't.
Most brokers think having a COI and a SAFER screenshot means they have a carrier file. A plaintiff's attorney doesn't attack what's in your file — they attack what isn't. Here's what that looks like and what it costs.