The Crash Indicator score, in plain words

What counts. Crashes — all of them in the file window, weighted by severity and time. There are no violations in this category; the events themselves are the input. Tow-away crashes count, injury crashes count more, fatal crashes count most.

The line. FMCSA's intervention threshold for this category is the 65th percentile — at or over it, the category is flagged for enforcement attention, and it is the flag brokers' policies key on. (In FMCSA's current public files, the alert on a carrier's own record is the operative signal — your report card reads it straight from the file.)

Why it matters. Two honest facts shape this page. First: FMCSA does not publish a Crash Indicator percentile to carriers or the public — it is an enforcement tool, and any site printing you a crash 'score' is inventing it. Your report card shows the counts, which are the real record. Second: a crash count is not a fault finding. The one lever that exists is FMCSA's preventability program — a crash the police report shows your driver could not prevent can be determined not preventable through DataQs, and the determination is recorded.

How the measure is built

There is no public measure to build: FMCSA computes a Crash Indicator internally from the crash file — tow-away, injury, and fatal crashes over the window, weighted by severity — but does not publish the percentile to carriers or the public. What the public record carries, and what your report card shows, is the counts themselves.

What brokers do with this number

Brokers see the counts, not a percentile — and they see them without the story. Two tow-away crashes read the same on a screening screen whether the police reports fault your driver or clear him, until a preventability determination attaches the story to the record. Factoring companies weigh the counts in onboarding too; a carrier with crashes and no determinations filed looks identical to a carrier at fault.

What a bad month looks like

Two tow-away crashes in one quarter — neither one your driver's fault on the police report — still double the count a broker's screen shows. The counts do not carry the story; the preventability determination is how the story gets attached to the record.

How to lower it

• Preserve the evidence for every crash from day one: police report, photos, dashcam — preventability is decided on documents months later.
• File preventability requests for every eligible crash — see the DataQs walkthrough.
• After any crash, run the post-accident testing and documentation clock exactly; the paperwork failures compound the event.

The general math — time weights, the 24-month window, and the dilution effect — is in how to lower your CSA score. Violations that don't belong on your record come off through a DataQs challenge. To see your own Crash Indicator standing, check your CSA score free.

Questions