If you recognize the name Milton Friedman, you’re probably an economics student or your joints sound like a bowl of Rice Krispies when you get out of bed. I’m more the latter but a little bit of the former. Dr. Friedman, a renowned economist popularized in a 1980 PBS documentary “Free to Choose” and multiple appearances on The Phil Donahue Show, was a free market capitalist. He advocated for reducing government regulations, instead relying on the market to determine winners and losers.
I’m a Friedman fan. Businesses and consumers are better than government at determining which products or services should be purchased. However, our ability to make good decisions rests on the availability of complete, accurate information.
The Motor Carrier Safety Act of 1984 directed the Federal Highway Administration (FMCSA’s predecessor) to establish procedures for determining whether an interstate trucking company employs adequate safety management controls to comply with federal regulations. The goal was to ensure roadway safety given the flood of new entrants following deregulation. Carriers are assigned satisfactory, conditional, and unsatisfactory ratings based on a compliance review.
In general, I think Dr. Friedman would approve of this system to the extent that it provides the market with information needed to make informed purchase decisions. Given full visibility into every carrier’s safety fitness determination, market forces (e.g. safety conscious or litigiously averse shippers, brokers, insurance companies, etc.) could punish carriers with poor safety records, potentially driving them out of business, and reduce the need for government safety regulation.
Unfortunately, the safety fitness determination system is broken. Ninety percent (90%) of motor carriers are unrated. FMCSA’s ability to provide every carrier with a safety fitness determination is made more difficult by a recent capacity influx. The number of active interstate motor carriers increased from 555,567 in 2019 to 735,895 in 2023. This growth stemmed almost entirely from carriers with 1-2 trucks.
Information obtained from FMCSA underscores the safety implications of so many unrated carriers. Over a 24-month period ending December 27, 2024 a total of 129,373 trucking companies were involved in a reportable crash. 108,689 (84%) of those companies were unrated. These unrated companies were involved in 167,371 total crashes, meaning some were involved in multiple events, and 4,523 of the crashes were fatal.
A sceptic might argue, “Why should I be surprised that 84% of companies involved in a reportable crash are unrated when 90% of all companies are also unrated?” This is a fair point and gets to the heart of the matter: Why are so many companies unrated?
We should encourage our safety partners at FMCSA to provide a safety fitness determination for every active interstate motor carrier. This is a big ask but important given trucking’s moral obligation to exceptional safety performance and aversion to further regulatory burdens. Safety fitness determinations help the free market weed out unsafe carriers. Shippers and brokers armed with a complete picture of every carrier’s rating could patronize those companies whose safety practices align with their corporate risk management priorities. To accomplish as much, FMCSA needs to obtain more data on unrated carriers. As Johnny 5 from “Short Circuit” (1986) would say: “Input, need more input!” I’ll stop with the 80’s references.
FMCSA (2025), “Pocket Guide to Large Truck and Bus Statistics,” available at https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/2025-09/FMCSA%20Pocket%20Guide%202024-v6%20508%20.pdf. Accessed April 9, 2026.
