MVR: the license's state record
The Motor Vehicle Record is what the licensing state knows about a driver: moving violations, suspensions, revocations, reported accidents. FMCSA requires carriers to review a driver's record at hire and periodically during employment.
What it catches: the speeding conviction the application didn't mention, the suspension that overlaps the "employed" period, the pattern of violations an insurer will price into your premium. What it misses: anything that never became a state conviction — which is exactly what the next check exists for.
PSP: the federal operational history
The Pre-Employment Screening Program is FMCSA's report of a driver's federally recorded crash history for the past five years and roadside inspection history for the past three, drawn from the agency's MCMIS database, with the driver's consent.
What it catches: crashes and out-of-service violations that don't appear on the MVR, and the general texture of how a driver operates — inspections, violations found, how often. Together with the MVR it turns "clean record" from a claim into a checked fact.
Clearinghouse: the drug-and-alcohol status
The FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse records CDL drivers' testing violations — positives, refusals — and their return-to-duty status. The pre-employment query is mandatory, and it closed the old loophole where a driver with a positive test simply moved to the next carrier before the paper trail caught up.
What it catches: prohibited-status drivers who would otherwise look hireable on every other check.
Employment verification and the DQ file
Carriers must verify an applicant's recent DOT-regulated employment history, including safety-sensitive testing history, and assemble the results — with the application, record checks and medical certificate — into the driver qualification file that must exist before the driver operates.
What this layer catches: gaps and inventions in work history, and the audit exposure of a file assembled in a hurry. It is also the slowest link in most hiring timelines, which is why starting it at the screening stage, rather than after the offer, is one of the few free wins in driver hiring.
Running it as one motion
None of these checks is exotic; the operational problem is that they live in different systems, on different timelines, with a candidate cooling off in the gap. The fleets that screen fastest run qualification first — license class, endorsements, experience, terms acceptance, checked in a screening interview — and then trigger the record checks automatically on everyone who passes, delivered as a single report.
That is the structure Call2Action automates: an AI interview qualifies every applicant, and CDL verification, MVR, carrier history, FMCSA safety records and drug test results arrive as one report before a recruiter opens the profile.
Common questions
Common questions
Aren't MVR and PSP the same thing?+
No. The MVR is a state record of convictions on the license — violations, suspensions, accidents that reached the state's system. PSP is FMCSA's federal report of crash history (five years) and roadside inspection history (three years), including events that never became state convictions. A driver can look clean on one and not the other, which is why carriers pull both.
Is the FMCSA Clearinghouse query optional?+
No. Carriers are required to query the Clearinghouse before hiring a CDL driver and annually for each employed driver. Hiring a driver who is in prohibited status is itself a violation. It is one of the few screening steps that is a direct regulatory requirement rather than diligence.
In what order should the checks run?+
Qualification first, verification second. There's no reason to pay for records on an applicant who doesn't hold the right license class or won't accept your route type — which is why an interview screening those criteria belongs before the record checks, and why running the checks automatically on everyone who passes keeps the pipeline moving.
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