---
title: "Inspection & Violation Trends Analysis — October 15, 2026 | AlphaLoops Data Hub"
url: https://runalphaloops.com/data/inspections/archive/2026-10-15
description: "Driver out-of-service rate reached 7.5% in July 2026, nearly double the 4.68% recorded in April 2023."
lang: en
---

# Inspection & Violation Trends Analysis

Snapshot from October 15, 2026. This analysis reflects FMCSA data available on that date and is preserved for citation.

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All snapshots (https://runalphaloops.com/data/inspections/archive)

## Analysis

· as of October 15, 2026

### Highlights

- Driver out-of-service rate reached 7.5% in July 2026, nearly double the 4.68% recorded in April 2023.
- The trailing 12-month average violation rate of 57.4% is 1.3 percentage points above the prior 12-month average of 56.1%.
- April 2026 posted the highest violation rate in the dataset at 59.39%, with 23,087 driver OOS orders issued that month.
- Total inspections over the five-year period reached 11.4 million, yielding more than 18.7 million recorded violations.
- Vehicle OOS rate climbed to 16.51% in April 2026, its highest point since the dataset begins in August 2022.

The most notable pattern in this dataset is the sustained and accelerating rise in driver out-of-service rates, which has diverged sharply from vehicle OOS trends over the past two years. Driver OOS rates held in a narrow 4.6%–5.2% band from mid-2022 through early 2025, then began climbing in April 2025 and have not returned to that range since. By July 2026, the driver OOS rate reached 7.5%, compared to 4.89% in July 2024, a year-over-year increase of roughly 53%. Vehicle OOS rates, by contrast, rose more modestly over the same period, from 14.5% in July 2024 to 15.77% in July 2026, a pattern that suggests the two series are responding to different underlying pressures rather than moving together as one might expect if overall inspection intensity alone were driving the trend.

The divergence appears to have inflected in early 2025. In March 2025, the driver OOS rate was 5.29% against 15.77% for vehicles. By March 2026, those figures were 7.06% and 15.88%, respectively. The gap between vehicle and driver OOS rates, which averaged roughly 9.5 percentage points in 2023, had narrowed to around 8.8 percentage points by mid-2026, driven entirely by the driver side moving up. This is consistent with increased enforcement emphasis on driver-related violations such as hours-of-service, license, and medical certificate deficiencies, though the data alone cannot confirm that interpretation.

The overall violation rate has also edged upward. The trailing 12-month average of 57.4% compares to 56.1% for the prior 12 months, and April 2026 posted a dataset high of 59.39%. Inspection volumes have grown concurrently, with several months in 2025 and 2026 exceeding 250,000 inspections, levels not seen earlier in the series. Whether higher volumes reflect increased enforcement activity, freight market growth, or a shift toward more targeted inspections is not determinable from the counts alone.

Placing these rates in the five-year context, the 18.7 million violations recorded across 11.4 million inspections represent a violation rate that has oscillated between roughly 53% and 59% throughout the period, never falling below or sustainably exceeding that band. The current reading near the upper end of that range, with driver OOS at levels not previously observed in this dataset, marks a departure from the relative stability that characterized 2023 and most of 2024.

### Key Statistics

7.5%

Driver out-of-service rate

July 2026

59.39%

Violation rate (highest in dataset)

April 2026

16.51%

Vehicle out-of-service rate (highest in dataset)

April 2026

57.4%

Average violation rate

Trailing 12 months

7.1%

Average driver out-of-service rate

Trailing 12 months

15.7%

Average vehicle out-of-service rate

Trailing 12 months

18,767,337

Total violations recorded

Five-year period (Aug 2022–Oct 2026)

11,403,042

Total roadside inspections conducted

Five-year period (Aug 2022–Oct 2026)

4.68%

Driver out-of-service rate (dataset low)

April and November 2023

24,632

Driver out-of-service orders issued

June 2026

474,194

Total violations recorded (single-month high)

July 2025

2,536,377

Total inspections conducted

Trailing 12 months

Cite this data

AlphaLoops. (2026). Inspection & Violation Trends — FMCSA Data Hub. Retrieved 2026-10-15 from https://runalphaloops.com/data/inspections.

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