The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Wednesday announced revision of its DataQs system requirements for states to be eligible to receive Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) funding. A Federal Register notice, set to publish April 16, followed a 2025 proposal that drew 223 public comments from trucking companies, drivers, and safety consultants.
FMCSA's announced “Revised DataQs Requirements for MCSAP Funding” lays out reforms, with new requirements for how states handle Request for Data Review (RDR) challenges.
Revisions include:
- Barring inspecting-/issuing-officer decisions on challenges filed related to their work
- A multi-stage review process with specific rules related to evidence supplied and requested
- More transparency in reasons for denials of DataQs challenges
- Strict timeliness requirements for the review process
The agency's timeline for implementation could see new procedures in all 50 states as soon as September of this year.
“Accurate data keeps our roads safe," said FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs. "America's hardworking truck drivers deserve a system that treats them fairly. These updates guarantee due process by ensuring drivers who challenge an inspection or crash record receive an independent, unbiased and completed review in a timely manner."
In its notice, FMCSA said that in 2024, its DataQs system, through which truckers and others file requests to correct data housed in federal safety databases about their businesses and/or individual safety records, received 8,314 requests on crash data and a whopping 63,548 requests concerning inspections and violations.
Of the comments received on its proposal last summer, the majority relevant were supportive of the agency's DataQs revision proposal. Common themes from the comments have been likewise common in reporting around the DataQs system for years, including in Overdrive's "Setting the Record Straight" feature series that turned up the heat on DataQs reform a half decade ago.
These 2021 poll results and the comment in the caption pretty well sum up then-broad support for some sort of reform, a national review panel at the time a considered approach.
Recent public commenters, the agency noted, signaled support for improving the timeliness of DataQs reviews, ensuring impartial and fair decision-making through multi-level reviews, improving uniformity in review processes across states, and incorporating independent or third-party reviewers into the RDR process.
A full summary of comments and FMCSA’s responses can be seen in the Federal Register notice at this link.
[Related: DataQs reform: FMCSA pivots to new state requirements for funding]
New measures are outlined in the remainder of this report.
Multi-stage reviews bar issuing officers from decisions
States will be newly required to incorporate a multi-stage review process for RDRs. The process for reviewing RDRs must include three stages: Initial Review, Reconsideration, and Final Review, where review of the RDR escalates from the DataQs analyst in the state's MCSAP lead agency to a responsible decision-maker or panel of subject matter experts.
Initial Review stage: The issuing officer or inspector cannot be the sole decision-maker when the outcome of the RDR is “Closed -- No Data Correction Made.” That's aimed to address what's been among truckers' chief complaints about the current system in many states, where initial reviews go right to the officer who filed the problematic violation or crash report in question, not to a more impartial supervisor or analyst.
Reconsideration stage: The RDR must be examined and decided by a person or panel with appropriate subject matter expertise within the MCSAP lead agency, typically a state's highway patrol and/or transportation or safety department. The Reconsideration reviewer must also be separate and independent from the initial reviewer, adding another layer of impartiality control.
Inspecting-/issuing officers can't participate at this stage, and the reconsideration also can't be reviewed/decided by an immediate supervisor of the issuing officer/inspector.
FMCSA also intends to introduce rules of evidence of sorts for Reconsideration-stage RDRs. The reviewer here may request additional information from the trucker or other party filing, provided it's relevant and material to the appeal, and provided information keeps the RDR in Reconsideration stage. Yet if new, unrequested, and relevant information or evidence that was not evaluated during the Initial Review is introduced, the RDR must return to Initial Review stage.
Fundamentally, the reviewer isn't allowed to decide the appeal based on the new evidence.
Final Review: FMCSA noted that RDRs appealed to this stage and decided will be binding from their perspective. Any related requests concerning the RDR will be heard only at the discretion of the state.
RDRs here must be escalated for review by a responsible decision-maker identified by the state (a senior leader in the MCSAP office, for example), or by utilizing an alternative process that ensures an independent and unbiased review and decision.
As is the process in a few states today, the review may be delegated to a panel or outside party that provides a recommendation to the decision-maker. The person or panel reviewing or deciding the Final Review can't be anyone involved in the initial- or reconsideration-stage reviews.
Those Reconsideration rules of evidence likewise apply here, sending appeals with new relevant info back to the start.
[Related: Legislation to reform DataQ appeals back in play]
Decision transparency
Among “General Requirements” outlined for states under revised rules is one that for each RDR closed -- including at various levels of appeal -- to a status of “Closed -- No Data Correction Made,” states have to adequately explain the facts and analysis supporting the decision. Explanations must contain:
- Description of or link to the state’s approved DataQs Implementation Plan
- Decision-maker name and title
- List of evidence reviewed
- The decision itself
- Specific reason(s) for the decision
- Next steps/directions for more information, including how to appeal the decision if it's made prior to final review stage
Under terms of new state requirements, FMCSA said, procedural closures (with outcomes like noted “Closed -- No Requestor Response” or “Closed -- Insufficient Information”) do not constitute a substantive decision on the merits and are exempt from the detailed reporting requirement.
Additionally, requests that are “Closed -- Insufficient Information” must contain the reason for the state’s action and directions to the DataQs filer to submit the required information.
[Related: How to challenge erroneous violation and crash data: FMCSA's DataQs system]
Review speed: States granted three weeks for first two stages, longer for final, and wide discretion on rejections
FMCSA’s new requirements allow states a week to open an RDR and just 21 days from the date of submission to decide on and communicate an Initial Review decision.
Decisions on any Reconsideration Review must be made and communicated within 21 days of appeal. Final Reviews are required to wrap up within 45 days of request.
To ensure timely dispute resolution, DataQs challengers must submit any appeal -- a request for a Reconsideration or Final Review -- within 30 days of the state issuing the decision in the previous stage. If a state returns a request at any stage for additional information, the state's timeline is paused. Filers have 14 days to respond to states’ requests.
“Closed -- No Requestor Response” is the default status for any RDR where info is asked for without response from the DataQs filer. That is, unless a decision can be made with the information already on the record. Any RDR reopened with additional information will not be escalated and will instead be reviewed at the level where it previously ended.
In these cases, the state will have the full allotted time for that stage.
Again, the rules of evidence apply similarly, routing any RDR with new info beyond what was requested back to the initial stage.
For regulatory purposes, states’ DataQs timeliness will be assessed based on the percentage of requests at each review level addressed in the respective timelines.
FMCSA emphasized what it called the "burden of proof" for all RDRs is "entirely with the requestor," the party challenging the violation, inspection, or crash.
States have the discretion to reject requests that are submitted without minimal factual or legal justification, and they don't have to conducting a full substantive review in those cases, the agency noted. Alternatively, a state can return the RDR to the filer and ask for the missing information.
For reconsiderations/final reviews, much the same applies, FMCSA said.
Appeal filers have to specifically address the state’s previous factual or legal basis for the decision and explain why they believe that decision was incorrect. Otherwise, the state has the authority to reject the request without further review.
Next steps
FMCSA laid out a proposed implementation schedule to help states meet the new requirements.
- April-May 2026: FMCSA begins training and outreach on the new requirements for DataQs. Training will include templates and guidance for creating and submitting DataQs Implementation Plans, webinars, and office hours.
- 60 days after the notice’s official publication on April 16: States submit draft DataQs Implementation Plans to FMCSA for review and approval.
- 120 days after publication: States finalize their DataQs Implementation Plans, based on feedback from FMCSA. FMCSA completes the implementation plan for relevant RDRs.
- 150 days after publication: DataQs system release to support the revised requirements. State implementation plans and new DataQs MCSAP requirements go into effect.
[Related: Preventable or not? When to use DataQs to request crash reviews for preventability]
