FMCSA PSP Report: Contents, Access, and Fixing Errors via DataQs

An FMCSA PSP report is a federal record, sold for $10 through the Pre-Employment Screening Program, that lists a commercial driver’s crashes from the past five years and roadside inspections from the past three, pulled from the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS).¹ Carriers use it to screen job applicants, and drivers can pull their own copy at any time to see what a prospective employer will see. The program is voluntary for carriers, and it requires the driver’s written consent before a carrier can run it.²

What Shows Up on the Report

The report has two sections: crash history for the last five years and roadside inspection history for the last three. It follows you across employers and across states, so a crash reported by a former carrier still appears, and moving your CDL to a new state does not wipe earlier events tied to your old license number.

For a crash to appear, it has to meet the federal definition of a reportable crash: a commercial motor vehicle on a public road, plus a fatality, an injury treated away from the scene, or a vehicle towed for disabling damage.³ Minor fender benders where everyone drives away do not qualify. What frustrates most drivers is the next part: fault does not matter. A crash where another driver rear-ended you at a red light shows up the same way a crash you caused would. There is a separate program (covered below) that can flag crashes as not preventable, but the entry itself stays on the record.

The inspection section lists every roadside check with the specific violations cited by the officer, along with the date, location, and reporting agency. Any violation that placed you out of service is flagged. One detail catches drivers off guard: the report shows the violation as originally cited, even if you later fought the ticket in court and won a different outcome.⁴ The court result does not overwrite the citation on the PSP record.

How to Pull Your Own PSP Report

You can request your own record any time at psp.fmcsa.dot.gov. The login runs through Login.gov with multi-factor authentication, and once you are in, the option is labeled “Request Your Record.” The price is $10, the same fee a carrier pays.¹ After purchase, the report stays viewable in your account for 120 hours.

Pulling your own report before you start applying is worth the $10. If something wrong or unexpected is on it, you have time to challenge the entry before a hiring manager sees it and moves on to the next applicant. Once you have logged in, you can also sign up for PSP Monitoring at no charge through the Driver Dashboard. The service sends you an email whenever your PSP data changes, which is how most drivers first learn a new inspection or crash has posted, or that a correction they requested has gone through.¹

How a PSP Report Differs From Your MVR

A clean state driving record does not mean a clean PSP report. The two documents come from different systems and follow different rules.

A PSP report draws from the federal MCMIS database and covers every state where you have operated. Your motor vehicle record comes from a single state’s DMV and only reflects events tied to the CDL that state issued.⁴
The PSP shows the original violation as written by the inspecting officer, no matter what happened later. The MVR only shows events that ended in a conviction.⁴
The PSP is limited to commercial vehicle crashes and inspections. The MVR captures a broader set of driving convictions, including offenses in your personal vehicle, but it does not include inspection-level detail.

That is why drivers with spotless MVRs sometimes see inspection violations on their PSP records. The violation was cited but never prosecuted to a conviction, so it never reached the state DMV.

Fixing Errors Through DataQs

When something on a PSP report is wrong or incomplete, the way to challenge it is the FMCSA DataQs system. This is the official channel for any request to correct federal or state safety data in MCMIS.⁵

File a Request for Data Review at dataqs.fmcsa.dot.gov. You will need the report number, the date of the event, and the state where the inspection or crash took place. Attach whatever you have: police reports, court dispositions, photographs, inspection paperwork. Evidence is what moves a request; a bare assertion that the record is wrong usually does not.

The portal routes your request to the state agency that entered the data in the first place, and that agency decides whether to modify the record, remove it, or leave it alone. Initial reviews must be completed within 21 days. If you ask for reconsideration, that answer also has to come within 21 days, and a final review, if it goes that far, must be completed within 45 days.⁶ A successful challenge updates MCMIS, and the correction flows through to any PSP report pulled after that point. If you are enrolled in PSP Monitoring, the change triggers an email so you do not have to buy another report to confirm.¹

Getting a Not-at-Fault Crash Flagged

Because crashes appear regardless of fault, FMCSA runs a separate process, the Crash Preventability Determination Program (CPDP), that at least lets you add context. You (or a carrier on your behalf) submit a request asking FMCSA to review a specific crash and decide whether it was not preventable. The crash does not come off the record, but a favorable ruling adds a “Not Preventable” notation to the detailed PSP report.⁷

Only certain crash types qualify for CPDP review, so it is not available for every situation. When it does apply, the notation gives a hiring manager the context that a bare crash entry does not. That can matter if the crash on your record is one you clearly did not cause.

What a Carrier Has to Do Before It Uses Your PSP Against You

Two federal rules protect you when a carrier runs your PSP report. First, the carrier cannot pull the report at all without your written consent. The statute directly requires the driver’s “written consent” before any screening.² In practice, the carrier gives you a disclosure form describing what will be pulled, and you sign it before the query.

Second, because PSP reports are used for employment decisions, they count as consumer reports under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. If a carrier decides not to hire you based on what is in the report, it has to follow the FCRA’s adverse action process. Before the final decision, the carrier must send you a pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the PSP report and a written summary of your FCRA rights, then give you a reasonable window to review it and dispute anything wrong. Only after that waiting period can the carrier send a formal adverse action notice.⁸

The final notice has to identify the consumer reporting agency, tell you the agency did not make the hiring decision, and inform you of your right to a free copy of the report within 60 days and your right to dispute its accuracy.⁸ A carrier that skips the pre-adverse action step, or that never gives you the chance to see the report before making a final decision, is the kind of carrier that ends up on the wrong end of an FCRA lawsuit. If that happened to you, keep the paperwork.

1
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Pre-Employment Screening Program
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 49 USC 31150 – Safety Performance History Screening
3
eCFR. 49 CFR 390.5T – Definitions
4
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. PSP and MVR – What’s the Difference?
5
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. DataQs
6
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. FMCSA Upgrades DataQs Program to Improve Efficiency and Transparency for Safety Record Corrections for American Truckers
7
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Crash Preventability Determination Program FAQs
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1681m – Requirements on Users of Consumer Reports