How to Read an FMCSA Safety Rating
FMCSA safety ratings summarize a carrier's compliance with federal safety regulations. Here's how to interpret them without over- or under-reacting.
The four ratings
Satisfactory means the carrier passed a compliance review. Conditional means deficiencies were found. Unsatisfactory means serious safety problems — avoid. Unrated means the carrier has never been through a compliance review, which is common and not inherently bad.
Why so many carriers are 'Unrated'
FMCSA audits only a fraction of carriers. Most smaller movers have never been audited and carry an Unrated status. Treat Unrated as neutral — lean on authority status and insurance-on-file signals instead, and check the live SAFER record.
Ratings can be stale
A safety rating may be years old. MoverProof shows the rating date on every profile so you can weigh how current it is, and links to the official SAFER Company Snapshot for the live record.
Phase 2: crash and inspection data
Beyond the rating, FMCSA's SMS program publishes crash counts, inspection results, and out-of-service (OOS) rates. MoverProof will layer these in to benchmark a carrier against national averages.
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