What a threat in a carrier review actually means

A threat, a shouting match, or a bad attitude in a previous carrier’s write-up is a workplace problem that almost never becomes a report you already buy. PSP, an MVR, and the Clearinghouse hold what someone filed. A fight with dispatch is usually not filed. If you wait for the packet to flag it, you will hire the file and meet the radio later.

Among the reviews carriers left on CDLScan, 13.9% mention aggression, rudeness, or threats. That figure describes those reviews, not drivers in general: carriers write after a bad run, so the share tells you what shows up once someone bothers to report it.

A stubborn share, not a spike

The share of reviews mentioning aggression or threats moved from 13.2% in 2018 to 15.1% in 2025. I stop that line at 2025. 2026 is still open. This is not the doubling you see on abandoned-truck mentions. From 13.2% to 15.1% is 1.9 points across eight complete years. The useful reading is not that it exploded. It is that it refused to leave, and 2025 is the high.

Do not smooth 2020. That is the low in the completed series, 11.2%, down from 14.6% the year before. I would not read the dip as the problem getting better. 2022 put the share back at 14.7%, 2024 eased to 12.6%, and 2025 is 15.1%. How these shares are counted is on the methodology page. Compare percentages inside each year, not year totals: the corpus grew, and a bigger pile of reviews is not a finding.

What sits in the same write-up

The language is workplace, not roadside. Carriers write about a bad attitude, yelling, rudeness, a threat, an argument with dispatch, someone always late, a fight over home time on the first load. That is the incident register. Stay away and waste your time are a different register: those are the author’s recommendation to the next recruiter, not a description of what the driver did.

Those two get mixed in the same paragraph all the time. In 37.2% of attitude reviews the carrier also writes a verdict. That is a fact about how these reviews end, not a fact about the driver. Read the scene. Do not hire off the temperature of the last sentence.

The companions that matter for hiring are operational. In 29.7% of attitude reviews the carrier also mentions an abandoned truck. In 17.0% they also mention a crash or damage. In 14.9% they also mention late or missed deliveries. Smaller slices sit next to logbook and hours problems (7.3%), theft or money games (6.9%), drugs or alcohol (6.3%), and refused loads or low miles (6.1%).

I read that cluster as a week, not as a personality type. Dispatch gets shorter answers. A load runs late. Someone yells. Sometimes the truck is in something. Sometimes the next line is that they left the truck. That pairing is why this category belongs next to abandoned-truck mentions over eight years, not in a folder labeled culture fit. 29.7% is a heavy overlap, not a majority. Screening for a fight will not catch every walk-off, and screening for a walk-off will not catch every fight. A write-up with both is a stop, not a color comment.

Why the packet you already buy stays quiet

PSP, an MVR, and the Clearinghouse hold what someone filed: a roadside inspection, a recorded crash, a failed test, a license action. Yelling at a dispatcher is not a filing. A threat over the radio is usually an employment mess. Nobody sends that to FMCSA. A clean PSP is doing its job when it is silent on this.

A crash in the same review is the exception that proves the split. 17.0% of attitude reviews also mention accident or damage. That part can show up in a report if it was recorded. The argument that came before it usually cannot. If you treat the MVR as the whole story, you keep the wreck and throw away the week that produced it.

Previous-employer forms are not much better. The last carrier answers the box they are willing to answer. Eligible for rehire can come back blank while the same desk will later write that the driver was rude, yelled, or threatened someone. The behavior lives in carrier-to-carrier memory. Most of that memory never becomes a query result.

I am not going to pretend this is an independent study. CDLScan is the source, and I write from the data they share. Aggression is common in what carriers bother to write down, it has not faded, and the packet you already run is not designed to hold it. Longer version of the same gap, on a different incident: why official reports miss an abandoned truck.

What was visible before you assigned a truck

The pattern I’d watch for is a short stint, a slow reference, and a previous carrier who already used the same words: rude, yelled, threatened, argued, bad attitude. Those words are not a violation code. They are also not proof. They are a reason to look the name up before you spend.

Typical sequence, built from how these reviews cluster, not from one person’s file: two carriers in a year and a hole between them. They start. The first load is late. Dispatch gets shorter, then loud. Sometimes there is a crash in the same week. Sometimes the tractor is at a truck stop. People who left cleanly can usually tell you what the last conversation with dispatch sounded like and where the truck was. People who walked often skip the radio and jump to home time. The difference is the recovery, not the adjective.

What to do before you spend

Run the name before you assign a unit. Search what previous carriers wrote, not only what the state and FMCSA stored. If you see rude, yelled, threatened, or a fight with dispatch in the same history as an abandoned truck or a wreck, treat that as a stop even when the MVR is dull.

Ask the candidate to walk the last two jobs without the ending they prefer. What did dispatch say. What will the previous carrier say if you call. Then make the call. Five open questions beat a rehire box; the version I use is in the reference questions that beat eligible-for-rehire.

If you already spent on a ticket or a hotel, freeze the next dollar until someone has looked. A clean packet on Monday morning does not tell you how this person talks to dispatch on load two. Those are different claims.

The 13.9% share is not a reason to treat every blunt applicant as a threat. It is a reason to stop reading a clean packet as “this person keeps their voice down under load.” Check the name on CDLScan before the spend. It takes less than a minute, and it is where that write-up actually sits.

Frequently asked questions

Does 13.9% mean about one in seven drivers will threaten someone?

No. 13.9% is the share of reviews that mention aggression, rudeness, or threats, among reviews carriers left on CDLScan. Carriers write after a bad run. It is not a rate for all CDL holders.

Why is 2025 15.1% if the article leads with 13.9%?

13.9% is the share across the whole period. 15.1% is the share inside 2025, the last complete year. They answer different questions. I use the period share when I am describing how common the write-up is, and the yearly series when I am describing whether it moved.

Did this get worse, or did it just stay?

It stayed, then ticked up. 13.2% in 2018 to 15.1% in 2025 is 1.9 points, not a doubling. 2020 is the low at 11.2%. 2025 is the high. Do not sell either year as a personality change in the industry.

Will PSP or an MVR warn me about a shouting match?

Not about the shouting. Those reports hold filed crashes, inspections, and license events. A fight with dispatch is not filed there. A crash in the same week might be. Most of this category is the part that never becomes a query.

If the review just says stay away, is that the same finding?

No. Stay away is the author’s recommendation. It tells you the last carrier is done. It does not tell you what happened. Look for the incident language: yelled, rude, threatened, argued. Hire off the scene, not off the temperature of the last line.

Is a threat in a review the same problem as an abandoned truck?

Often related, not the same. 29.7% of attitude reviews also mention an abandoned truck. That is a heavy overlap and still a minority. Screen for both. Do not let one stand in for the other.

What should I ask if the last job was short and the reference is slow?

What the last conversation with dispatch sounded like, whether anyone was threatened, where the truck was when they left, and what the previous carrier will say if you call. Then go read what previous carriers already wrote.