Just how likely is any given owner-operator to be inspected during the next installment of the Roadcheck inspection event?
It's slated for May 12-14 next week, and if the 2025 event provides a roadmap, your chance is about 1 in 5. Just post-Roadcheck last year a few thousand of you weighed in with answer to the question shown in the graph below. 21% of poll respondents reported being inspected during the three days of the event.
A lot's been made in some recent years of how routine, really, those three days can feel in certain areas of the country, but the 21%-inspected number is well more than the roughly 15% of owner-operators who reported an inspection of some kind during the seven-day late-summer Brake Safety Week in 2024.
So maybe it's true: Roadcheck really is more of an all-hands-on-deck sort of inspection event, Mike "Mustang" Crawford's 2023 and 2024 experiences notwithstanding.
In Overdrive Radio this week, you'll hear my CCJ colleague and editor Jason Cannon's talk with Travis Baskin, head of regulatory affairs for the Motive company, about the 2026 Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance Roadcheck, and ways owner-ops, drivers and small fleet owners might prepare for a focus on false logs.
And not just as a result of the kinds of whole-cloth backend electronic logging device manipulation we're seeing new evidence of just today with a report from Overdrive's Alex Lockie about one driver's experience at a carrier CBS News linked to the Super Ego network of so-called "chameleon" fleets.
Regular readers will recall false logs was also the focus last year, CVSA’s annual campaign particularly keying in on misuse of personal conveyance, with results that showed hours of service as the single biggest out-of-service violation category. The year overall marked something of a sea change for the false-logs category as inspectors focused on PC misuse and were increasingly aware of ELD manipulation, too.
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Yet today we can show you some new rankings of states by their propensity to focus closely on and catch hours violations. Indiana’s sitting at the very top of the state-by-state list, issuing just more than 1 in every 4 violations in 2025 for hours infractions.
Behind Indiana, all at higher than 20% hours violations, are Kansas, Oregon, South Dakota, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa and Colorado. All issue 1 in every five statewide violations for hours infractions, a few other states close behind them, as shown below.
On the logbook fraud front, too, it’s likely not just backend manipulation by a fleet or ELD company at issue, Travis Baskin notes. You’ve probably heard the “ghost driver” terminology, an electronic variant on the extra-logbook-under-the-seat approach to making it look right, with multiple logins for a single driver.
Baskin, speaking to Cannon just ahead of CVSA’s annual workshop event early last month, said he’s been a regular at such events, and that enforcement officials are increasingly aware of, and penalizing drivers and carriers for, the practice.
"This is the type of stuff I know that the CVSA is very well aware of," Baskin said. "I know there's going to be a focus on this type of behavior." Take a listen for more:
A note to the flatbedders in the audience: The vehicle focus for Roadcheck this year is securement, a repeat from a few years ago when a similar focus yielded more-than-usual such violations around the nation.
And there is something to the routine in Roadcheck with respect to the truck itself, as you know, which both Baskin and Cannon emphasize. Brakes, tires, lights, you name it. All will be under the microscope.
A few more Roadcheck-ready resources via the links below:
- Roadcheck 2026 overview
- Ways to avoid inspection, without bypassing the scales
- CVSA out-of-service criteria updates for 2026, 2025, 2024 and 2023
- Invest in inspections now to save money, hassle later
- Man v. machine at roadside: Mitigating rising 'false logs' risk
- Inspections, violations, safety scores: Following rules of the road, and how they follow you
- More ways owner-ops can avoid -- or ace -- inspections
- Roadcheck 2024 overview
- Where inspection is most likely, state by state, following Roadcheck 2023
- The toughest states for brakes, other maintenance-related violations
- The toughest 10 states for load securement violations
- Stay ahead of inspectors with these maintenance topics
- Five most common reasons wheel seals fail
- How brake-adjustment alone can put you out of service -- the '20% rule'
- Find more in Overdrive's long-running CSA's Data Trail series via this page
[Related: What works as personal conveyance in the logbook or ELD under hours rules?]
