Carrierintel · Blog
What the FMCSA data actually says.
We aggregate every public dataset FMCSA publishes — inspections, violations, crashes, authority, insurance. Then we dig until something interesting falls out. No press releases. Just the numbers.
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ELD tampering by state, 2026: three states write 56% of all citations
Arizona, Oregon and Alabama filed 4,019 of the 7,110 state-filed ELD tampering inspections since April 1, 2026 — 56.5% — and 96.9% of all cited inspections ended out of service. Eight states have not written one. The full 43-state table, the monthly series, the towns behind the numbers, and why the trucks cited in Arizona come from California and Illinois.
Who gets cited for ELD tampering: 5,024 carriers, one in five of them more than once
Six months of FMCSA ELD tampering citations fall on 5,024 carriers. 1,089 were cited at least twice, 121 five or more times, and the worst 23 times in nine states. The median cited carrier declares 7 trucks, but the citation rate per 10,000 active carriers climbs 57-fold from one-truck fleets to fleets of 101–500. Illinois and California carriers make up 41% of the list — and Illinois has not written a single citation.
False logs vs. ELD tampering: the same rule, 29% vs. 97% out of service
§395.8(e) covers two different things. Since April 2026, 30,526 inspections cited a false record of duty status under (e)(1) and 7,149 cited ELD tampering under (e)(2)–(3). The false-log inspections are four times more common and end out of service 29.0% of the time; the tampering inspections end out of service 96.9% of the time. Only 857 inspections carried both. What the twelve §395.8(e) codes are, which states write which, and what happened to the false-log count when the tampering codes arrived.
44% of today's logbook violations come from rules that didn't exist before ELDs
Across 916,533 Part 395 violations recorded between September 2024 and August 2026, 403,368 — 44.0% — came from ELD-specific sections: certification, mounting, manuals, data transfer, unassigned driving, trailer and shipping-document entry. They carry 17.1% of the CSA points, put a driver out of service 0.10% of the time, and their citation rate varies about 97-fold between Arizona and New Jersey.
Alabama became the second Arizona for one month: 4 ELD tampering inspections in April, 258 in July
In April 2026 the whole state wrote 4 ELD tampering inspections. In July it wrote 258 — second only to Arizona — before Oregon took second place back in August. 614 of Alabama's 615 inspections ended out of service, they cluster in a dozen towns on the interstate corridors, and only 6 of the 549 carriers cited are Alabama carriers.
FMCSA revoked 10 ELDs: the September 8 deadline has passed — what it means now
On July 9, 2026 FMCSA removed ten Electronic Logging Devices from the registered list and gave carriers 60 days. That deadline expired on September 8: a driver still on one of these devices is now cited under 395.8(a)(1) and placed out of service. The full device list, and the tampering data behind the enforcement wave.
Phantom fleets: 3,025 active US carriers inspected with 3× more trucks than they declared
The gap between what US trucking companies declare on their MCS-150 and what state inspectors record at roadside. On October 26, 2026, 3,025 active US carriers had been inspected over twelve months with 3× or more unique power-unit VINs than the trucks they declare; 489 are at 10×, nine exceed 100×. The highest, a one-truck Illinois LLC, was inspected with 230 different power units in 42 states. The states, the twelve highest ratios, and what the data can and cannot say.
Arizona is ground zero for ELD tampering: what carriers need to know
Since FMCSA began coding ELD tampering under §395.8(e)(2) on April 1, 2026, our data holds 7,415 tampering inspections of 5,213 carriers through October 19. Arizona filed 1,940 of them, more than any other state, and 98.7% ended out of service; its monthly count peaked in June. Here's what the data shows and why every fleet should care.