Glossary · Driver Life & Work
Pre-Employment Screening (PSP) (PSP).
FMCSA system providing motor carriers a driver's 5-year crash history and 3-year inspection history before hiring decisions.
What it is
PSP — Pre-Employment Screening Program — is the FMCSA service that lets motor carriers query a CDL driver's 5-year crash history and 3-year roadside inspection history. The query requires driver consent and costs $10 per query for carriers, paid through the NIC Technologies-administered portal. Results return inspection details, out-of-service (OOS) orders, citations, and crash involvement — the operational record that follows the driver from carrier to carrier.
PSP is distinct from related records that get conflated. It's not the same as MVR (Motor Vehicle Record), which is state-DMV data on license status and traffic convictions. It's not the same as CSA Driver Safety Measurement, which is a carrier-level scoring system. PSP focuses on individual driver historical data pulled from FMCSA's Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS). Carriers use PSP alongside Clearinghouse queries during the hiring workflow — Clearinghouse covers drug and alcohol, PSP covers crashes and inspections. Together they form the federally-mandated baseline of pre-hire screening.
Why it matters for trucking finance
PSP results influence both hiring decisions and insurance pricing — a driver with multiple OOS orders or serious violations is harder to insure and more expensive to insure. For owner-operators staying solo (no employees), PSP isn't directly relevant to hiring, but the operator's own PSP record affects their company-driver job prospects and insurance pricing. Lenders evaluating fleet operators expect proper PSP screening as part of basic hiring discipline — sloppy hiring correlates with higher claims and rising CSA scores.
Related terms
- CSA Score (CSA) — FMCSA Compliance, Safety, Accountability program scoring system that rates carrier safety performance using roadside inspection and crash data.
- CDL Class A (CDL-A) — Commercial Driver's License Class A — required for combination vehicles over 26,001 lbs GCWR with a towed unit over 10,000 lbs; the standard CDL for OTR trucking.
- Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse (Clearinghouse) — FMCSA-operated database tracking commercial driver drug and alcohol violations; mandatory query for hiring and annual checks since 2020.
Related Dispatched products
Ready to qualify?
The vocabulary above is the upper-funnel layer. If you are ready to move on financing, factoring, or insurance, start the matching flow — soft pull, no credit impact to begin.