The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Pre-Employment Screening Program, commonly called PSP, provides a defined federal safety-history record for a commercial driver. It is often confused with a state motor-vehicle record, a carrier’s driver-qualification file, or every record that might concern the driver. Those sources should be collected and labeled separately.

A PSP record is a federal screening record with defined coverage; it is not a motor-vehicle record, a complete employment history, or a finding of crash responsibility.

Verify the person, request, and version

  • Driver name and matching identifiers reviewed without placing sensitive identifiers in a public summary
  • Person or carrier that requested the record, written authorization when applicable, request date, retrieval date, and report version recorded
  • Driver-requested copy kept separate from a motor-carrier request made for pre-employment screening
  • Original PDF or delivered record preserved with its notices, explanatory text, page count, and update date

Understand the defined PSP coverage

The official FMCSA PSP site describes PSP as a screening program using information from FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Management Information System. The program is voluntary for motor carriers. A carrier must obtain the driver’s written authorization before requesting the driver’s PSP record.

FMCSA’s PSP frequently asked questions state that a driver’s record includes five years of crash data and three years of roadside inspection data from the program’s monthly update. The record may identify the carrier for which the driver was operating at the time, along with event location and date. The precise fields and notices in the retrieved report control.

  • Crash entry, inspection entry, inspection level, violation, out-of-service indicator, carrier shown, event date, location, and report number transcribed without adding conclusions
  • Coverage start and end dates calculated from the report’s own update date rather than the date someone later reviews it
  • Duplicate event, amended event, missing entry, or disputed entry documented with the source and date
  • A crash listing not described as a preventability, fault, negligence, or citation finding unless a separate identified record supports that statement

Separate PSP from required employment inquiries

49 C.F.R. § 391.23 addresses investigations and inquiries a motor carrier must make concerning a driver’s safety-performance history and motor-vehicle record. A voluntary PSP request does not replace every inquiry, record, response, or documentation required by that regulation.

  • PSP record kept separate from state motor-vehicle records, prior-employer responses, application materials, road-test or license records, medical qualification records, and annual review documents
  • Date requested, date received, person who reviewed it, hiring decision, follow-up inquiry, and later update treated as different events
  • A carrier’s knowledge evaluated from records actually available to it at the relevant time, not from a report obtained after the crash
  • Sensitive personal data handled through an appropriate protected process rather than copied into correspondence or a public page

Document disputes and later corrections

  • Exact entry challenged, report number, explanation, supporting record, submission date, reviewer response, and resulting report version preserved
  • Original report retained alongside the corrected or later report so the sequence remains visible
  • Database update timing considered before describing a record as absent or unchanged
  • Correction of a federal database entry kept separate from the civil issues presented by a specific collision

The related guide to the truck driver qualification file after a North Carolina crash explains how an application, employment inquiries, licensing records, medical documents, annual reviews, and other carrier-held material can be organized as a broader file.

Rosensteel Fleishman Car Accident & Injury Lawyers provides general records information for people who may later speak with counsel about a Charlotte truck-accident claim involving a driver’s safety history. Access, privacy, relevance, admissibility, carrier knowledge, causation, and legal responsibility depend on the complete records, timing, current law, and individual facts.

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