A Not Preventable Crash Comes Off the Score, Not Off the Record

For crashes occurring on or after December 1, 2024, FMCSA will review 21 types of crash for preventability. A crash it finds Not Preventable leaves the calculation of your Crash Indicator BASIC — and stays on the public SMS website, in a separate table, where anyone reading your record sees it (89 FR 96269). That gap between “out of the math” and “off the record” is the program.

What does the Crash Preventability Determination Program do?

FMCSA applies one published standard to an eligible crash you submit, and returns one of three answers: Not Preventable, Preventable, or Undecided. It is voluntary — “the CPDP process will remain initiated by a request from the motor carrier, driver, or authorized representatives”; FMCSA declined to review crashes on its own initiative.

The standard predates the program. 49 CFR part 385, appendix B, section II.B(e): “If a driver, who exercises normal judgment and foresight could have foreseen the possibility of the accident that in fact occurred, and avoided it by taking steps within his/her control which would not have risked causing another kind of mishap, the accident was preventable.” The burden of showing by compelling evidence is on you.

Which crashes are eligible?

Twenty-one named types, nothing before August 1, 2019, and nothing older than five years:

1. CMV struck in the rear by a motorist
2. CMV struck on the side at the rear by a motorist
3. CMV struck while legally stopped at a traffic control device or parked, including unattended
4. Struck because another motorist was driving in the wrong direction
5. Struck because another motorist was making a U-turn or illegal turn
6. Struck because another motorist did not stop or slow in traffic
7. Struck because another motorist failed to stop at a traffic control device
8. Struck because another individual was under the influence, by the jurisdiction’s legal standard
9. Struck because another motorist experienced a medical issue that contributed to the crash
10. Struck because another motorist fell asleep
11. Struck because another motorist was distracted
12. Struck by cargo or equipment from another vehicle, or debris
13. Crash resulting from an infrastructure failure
14. CMV struck an animal
15. Crash involving a suicide death or suicide attempt
16. Struck on the side by a motorist operating in the same direction
17. Struck because another motorist was entering the roadway from a private driveway or parking lot
18. Struck because another motorist lost control of the vehicle
19. CMV involved in a crash with a non-motorist
20. A crash type that seldom occurs and meets no other eligible type
21. Any other crash where video demonstrates the sequence of events

December 2024 added four new types — the same-direction side strike, the private driveway or parking lot, the loss of control, and the video catch-all — and restructured the rest, taking the list from 16 entries to 21. Existing types were modified to “encompass more scenarios, such as where the CMV was not the striking vehicle and multi-vehicle crashes,” and the requirement that the other driver have admitted falling asleep or distracted driving is gone. Two traps remain: the lost-control type requires a PAR that “specifically mention[s] loss of control either in the citation, contributing factors, and/or PAR narrative,” and the wrong-direction type still will “NOT allow for partial crossing of the center line” — FMCSA pointed those crashes at the video catch-all instead.

What evidence does a Request for Data Review need?

What makes a crash Preventable when someone else hit you?

Being legally prohibited from operating at the moment of impact. FMCSA finds a crash Preventable where the driver or carrier “could have prevented the crash or was prohibited from operating the CMV at the time of the crash. This includes, but is not limited to, out-of-service violations, license violations, and driver prohibitions in the Agency’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse.”

• Licensing is verified against records, not your file. FMCSA uses the MCMIS crash report; if that is missing or shows the wrong license class, it turns to CDLIS, which also confirms there was no open license withdrawal or drug-or-alcohol suspension.
• A renewal triggers a document request. If the license or medical certificate was renewed since the crash, FMCSA asks you to prove status on the crash date, on the 14-day clock — a driver qualification file job.
• A post-crash inspection can end it. An out-of-service violation that predated the crash and was not attributed to it makes it ineligible for Not Preventable.
• The Clearinghouse is checked. A prohibited driver behind the wheel is a Preventable crash whatever the other motorist did — see the Clearinghouse guide.

What does a Not Preventable determination change?

One calculation, plus a line on the driver’s PSP record. FMCSA declined in December 2024 to change how determinations are used or displayed, so the 2020 treatment stands.

Determinations “do not establish legal liability, fault, or negligence by any party,” and FMCSA states that under 49 U.S.C. 504(f) they “may not be admitted into evidence or used in a civil action for damages.” Absence proves nothing either: “the absence of a not preventable determination does not indicate that a crash was preventable.”

Size the prize first. In FMCSA’s analysis of the 2-year demonstration program, carriers that had not preventable crashes removed “had a percentile drop of 9 points in that BASIC” — a percentile that has never been public, visible only to the carrier, FMCSA and law enforcement. Crashes stay in SMS for 2 years and the Crash Indicator uses the previous 24 months, so a determination landing in month 23 arrives too late. The driver’s PSP record runs 5 years, often the better reason to file. See what a CSA score measures and the PSP report guide.

Where does the CPDP sit inside DataQs?

Same front door, different agency behind it. Ordinary Requests for Data Review are adjudicated by the State; preventability reviews are FMCSA’s. “RDRs for crash preventability reviews should not be submitted to the States or other organizations through DataQs and will be closed.”

The distinction now has an edge. The revised DataQs requirements published April 16, 2026 set States calendar-day deadlines — open an RDR within seven days of submission, decide an Initial Review or a Reconsideration within 21 days, a Final Review within 45 (91 FR 20561). FMCSA’s published schedule puts the point at which those requirements “go into effect” at 150 days after publication, and they bind States, not FMCSA. The Agency said it is “currently evaluating similar timeliness standards for Federal inspection-related RDRs,” which does not reach CPDP crash reviews: there is no published deadline for a preventability determination. Note that DataQs will not let you complete the request until the State has submitted the crash to MCMIS, and that a Preventable or Undecided result is not final — an RDR “may be re-opened once.” Our DataQs walkthrough covers the State track.

What a preventability determination cannot tell you

It answers one question about one moment: could a driver exercising normal judgment have avoided this impact. It says nothing about the driver, by design — FMCSA makes determinations “by persons with no personal knowledge of the crash.”

But what you want to know after a crash is a hiring question: did the driver report it, or did dispatch hear it from the police? A PSP report shows crashes and inspections, an MVR shows convictions; neither has a field for conduct. That is the layer cdlscan is built for — reviews written by carriers who employed the driver, covering the period they employed him; our driver reviews overview covers the format.

Say the boundary plainly: this sits on top of the required checks, never in place of any of them. The PSP and MVR checks, the investigations under 391.23, the Clearinghouse queries and the CPDP process above are unaffected, and nothing here discharges any of them. If you rely on third-party information about a driver in an employment decision, ask the provider which category of information they consider it under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and confirm with your own counsel which obligations attach.

Frequently asked questions