FMCSA “virtual” trucking inspections began under Trump, not Biden

FMCSA records show the agency expanded remote compliance reviews in the spring of 2020, during President Donald Trump’s first administration.

On May 19, 2020, FMCSA issued guidance stating that it would use available technology to conduct motor carrier compliance reviews during the COVID-19 public health emergency to reduce exposure risks for carriers and safety investigators.

The agency said investigators could obtain records electronically and communicate with carrier officials through email, telephone and video calls. FMCSA also said it could assign a carrier a safety rating following a compliance review even when no onsite review activities occurred.

“FMCSA has determined that because safety investigators are able to follow all of the procedures in 49 CFR part 385 without physically visiting the motor carrier’s business premise, compliance reviews that do not include an ‘on-site’ component will limit exposure risk to COVID-19, consistent with current regulations, without compromising FMCSA’s safety mission,” the agency said at the time.

The May 2020 guidance took effect immediately and was originally supposed to remain in effect until the presidentially declared COVID-19 national emergency was revoked.

FMCSA subsequently issued internal guidance on May 22, 2020, allowing investigators to conduct remote focused investigations and expanded the procedures in December 2020 to allow remote onsite comprehensive investigations, according to a later FMCSA study of its carrier intervention program.

Remote investigations surged during COVID

FMCSA data show how dramatically the agency’s investigative practices changed during the pandemic.

The agency and its state partners conducted 1,013 offsite investigations in fiscal year 2019. That figure jumped nearly fivefold to 5,058 in FY2020 and remained elevated at 4,821 in FY2021, according to FMCSA’s Carrier Intervention Effectiveness Model.

At the same time, onsite comprehensive investigations fell from 5,494 in FY2019 to 2,908 in FY2020 and 2,064 in FY2021.

FMCSA later acknowledged that COVID disrupted its ability to conduct onsite investigations because those reviews required investigators to visit carriers’ principal places of business.

The Biden administration continued aspects of the remote approach after taking office.

In a certification policy effective June 1, 2022, FMCSA said that during COVID it had waived requirements that comprehensive investigations be conducted onsite and allowed investigators to maintain certification through offsite investigations and by tracking the regulatory “parts investigated.”

FMCSA said it was incorporating lessons learned during the pandemic into its certification policies, including allowing all regulatory parts used to maintain an investigator’s certification to be investigated offsite.

March memo reportedly restores physical presence

The Daily Wire said it based its report on an internal March 2026 FMCSA memorandum from Philip W. Thomas, the agency’s deputy associate administrator for safety.

According to the report, Thomas said remote procedures can “inhibit the ability to fully assess the motor carrier’s compliance and safety measures” and reduce the effectiveness of onsite investigations.

“Now that the public health emergency has ended, FMCSA is reinstating its pre-pandemic standard of conducting investigations with a meaningful physical presence at the motor carrier’s PPOB [principal place of business] per PPOB policy,” Thomas wrote, according to the memo quoted by The Daily Wire.

The directive reportedly says onsite investigations should involve substantive engagement with carriers rather than brief visits or drive-bys and calls for investigators to conduct in-person questioning with company officials.

The Daily Wire reported that investigators could still close investigations virtually in certain extenuating circumstances involving difficult travel or time constraints.

FreightWaves has asked FMCSA for a copy of the March directive, its effective date and clarification about exactly which categories of motor carrier investigations it covers. The agency had not responded as of publication.

FMCSA hasn’t eliminated offsite investigations

The March directive should not be confused with an elimination of all remote investigations.

FMCSA continues to list offsite investigations as one of three investigation types under its Compliance, Safety, Accountability enforcement program.

An offsite investigation involves a safety investigator requesting documents from a carrier and reviewing them remotely to examine specific safety performance and compliance problems.

The other two categories are onsite focused investigations, which examine particular safety or compliance problems at the carrier’s place of business, and onsite comprehensive investigations, which examine the carrier’s broader safety operation at its place of business.

FMCSA’s current Motor Carrier Management Information System data show the agency and its state partners conducted 1,538 offsite investigations in FY2025.

Another 514 had been recorded in FY2026 through Aug. 28, compared with 4,411 onsite focused and 3,706 onsite comprehensive investigations.

The numbers suggest FMCSA has already moved substantially away from the pandemic-era reliance on offsite investigations, but remote reviews remain part of the agency’s enforcement system.

FMCSA previously defended remote reviews

Another unanswered question is whether remote investigations proved less effective at identifying safety violations.

FMCSA publicly defended their effectiveness during the pandemic.

In a March 2021 enforcement presentation, the agency presented an analysis under the heading “Remote Investigations Do not Hamper Ability to Discover Violations.”

The analysis compared investigations conducted before and during the COVID-19 period.

Before the pandemic procedures took effect, 88% of offsite investigations identified violations and 24% identified acute or critical violations. During the COVID period examined by FMCSA, 92% of offsite investigations identified violations and 30% identified acute or critical violations.

Those figures do not necessarily establish that remote investigations were as effective as physically visiting a carrier. Different carriers and safety issues can be targeted for different types of investigations, and a document-based review may not reveal conditions that could be observed at a carrier’s facility.

But the agency’s earlier assessment raises questions about what evidence led FMCSA to conclude in 2026 that remote procedures were limiting investigators’ ability to fully assess carriers.

FreightWaves has asked FMCSA whether it has more recent data comparing remote and onsite investigations, including violation rates, acute or critical violations, enforcement actions and subsequent safety performance.

Fatal Kansas crash cited in report

The Daily Wire highlighted a February 2021 fatal crash near Topeka, Kansas, as an example of the potential shortcomings of remote investigations.

According to the report, FMCSA conducted a remote investigation of the trucking company involved about a month before the crash and did not physically visit the business.

On Feb. 24, 2021, a tractor-trailer hauling steel pipes lost its load on Interstate 70 near Topeka. Pipes crossed the median and struck multiple vehicles, killing 29-year-old Brooke Rees.

The Daily Wire reported that the driver had an expired medical certificate and lacked a required record of duty status, while the truck lacked a current annual inspection and had load-securement violations.

The outlet also reported that during the earlier remote investigation, the carrier said the driver was not employed by the company but remained on its books because he occasionally worked for it.

FreightWaves has not independently obtained the January 2021 FMCSA investigative report and therefore has not independently verified what investigators examined or discovered before the crash.

FreightWaves has asked FMCSA for records concerning that investigation and any subsequent investigation of the carrier after the fatal crash. The Kansas Highway Patrol has also been asked for the crash report, post-crash commercial vehicle inspection and related investigative records.

The National Transportation Safety Board did not investigate the crash, NTSB officials told FreightWaves.

Those records could help answer a central question surrounding FMCSA’s return to in-person investigations: whether physical visits uncover safety deficiencies that investigators can miss when reviewing a carrier remotely.

Why it matters: FMCSA’s March 2026 push to restore meaningful physical presence during onsite carrier investigations represents a significant change from COVID-era procedures, but it does not appear to eliminate the agency’s longstanding offsite investigation program.