A loaded walk-off and a no-show are different people

A loaded trailer left at a stop and a no-show at orientation are not the same hire failing twice. They are two different people, and the review data separates them almost completely: the two events land in the same write-up about a seventh as often as chance alone would produce. Screen for one and you will not catch the other.

Among the reviews carriers left on CDLScan, 5.5% mention walking off a loaded trailer. 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.

Inside that slice, only 0.8% also mention a no-show. If the two events were independent, you would expect about 5.3% — the no-show share of all reviews. The observed overlap is about a seventh of chance. Lift is 0.14. Flip the pair and 0.8% of no-show reviews also mention a loaded trailer. Same overlap, two bases. Rare together is not the same as impossible. It is a strong hint you are looking at two populations.

Two failures, two clocks

A no-show is an onboarding loss. You spent a ticket, a hotel, a recruiter’s week. You did not hand over a unit. The language is never showed, didn’t show, flight ticket, plane ticket, ticket never, booked flight, showed orientation.

Walking off a loaded trailer is an operations loss. The freight is still on the hook. The unit is somewhere that is not your yard. The language is loaded trailer, abandoned loaded, left loaded, dropped loaded, truck loaded, trailer yard.

Those clocks do not usually share a review because they do not usually share a person. The driver who never arrives cannot leave your loaded trailer at a stop. The driver who leaves a loaded trailer already arrived, already took a truck, and already had freight in their hands.

What actually rides with a loaded trailer is the walk-off cluster. An abandoned truck sits in 70.8% of loaded-trailer reviews — lift 2.11, the pairing that defines the event. A crash or damage sits in 13.8%. Late or missed deliveries sit in 13.1%. Aggression sits in 12.0%. Theft sits in 10.2%. Going unreachable sits in 7.7%. A cash advance sits in 5.3%. A no-show is not on that list. Paid travel is not on that list.

What actually rides with a no-show is the empty-chair cluster. Drugs or alcohol sit in 31.7% of no-show reviews. Paid travel with no arrival sits in 30.8%. Going unreachable sits in 13.0%. An abandoned truck sits in only 7.8% — against a 33.5% base rate, far below chance. A loaded trailer sits in 0.8%. Theft sits in 5.7%. False statements sit in 5.0%. Late deliveries sit in 4.3%.

Stay away and waste your time are a different register. In 33.2% of loaded-trailer reviews the carrier also writes a verdict. In 39.6% of no-show reviews they do the same. 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 pairing that does sit together on the onboarding side is paid travel and a no-show: 30.8% of no-show reviews also mention paid travel, about five times chance. That is unpacked in paid travel and a no-show. The loaded-trailer climb is in walking off a loaded trailer. No-shows as their own category are in no-show driver reviews. The broader split between the empty chair and the walk-off is in why no-shows and abandoned trucks barely overlap.

How we count these shares, and why year totals cannot be compared, is on the methodology page.

Why recruiters mash them together

Because both waste a week and both look like “they didn’t work out.” Because both are mostly invisible on PSP, an MVR, and the Clearinghouse. Because a desperate desk wants one screen that catches every early loss.

One screen will not. The application before a no-show is urgency plus a thin last job plus a quiet packet. The application before a loaded walk-off is a short stint, a hole, and a previous carrier who already used left-the-truck or loaded-trailer language. If you only hunt for never-showed, you will hire the person who is pleasant at orientation and gone on the first live load. If you only hunt for the loaded walk-off, you will buy flights for people who have already done this to someone else.

The share of reviews mentioning walking off a loaded trailer ran 2.7% in 2018, 4.2% in 2019, 4.6% in 2020, 3.8% in 2021, 4.5% in 2022, 6.0% in 2023, 6.5% in 2024, and 5.3% in 2025. I stop that line at 2025. 2026 is still open.

No-show mentions ran 3.7% in 2018, 3.3% in 2019, 3.8% in 2020, 5.1% in 2021, 5.8% in 2022, 5.0% in 2023, 6.2% in 2024, and 4.9% in 2025. Both problems moved. They still do not sit in the same write-up.

What official reports see — and what they don’t

Neither population is what those reports were built to hold. A no-show is not a crash. A loaded trailer left at a truck stop is usually not a filing unless someone called it in as abandoned equipment. A clean packet can sit on top of either failure. The difference is where the next clue lives.

For the never-starts, look at previous tickets and empty orientation days. For the loaded walk-offs, look at previous recoveries and “loaded trailer” or “left the truck” language. Previous-employer forms help the second group more than the first, and they still fail often. The last desk may confirm dates and leave the story in a review instead of a form.

Drugs or alcohol are the exception that proves the split. They show up in 31.7% of no-show reviews. The official system that can catch a test event is pointed at the onboarding population more than at the walk-off. Do not let that make you treat a loaded trailer as a drug article. The data says the opposite.

I am not going to pretend this is an independent study. CDLScan is the source, and I write from the data they share. A loaded walk-off is common enough in what carriers bother to write down, a no-show almost never rides along, and the packet you already run is silent on both.

What to do with two screens

Run two short checks, not one vague “will they stay.”

Before you buy a ticket or lock orientation: search the name for never showed, didn’t show, flight ticket, paid travel. Ask when they can start if the flight waits. That screen is for the empty chair.

Before you assign a loaded trailer: search the name for loaded trailer, left loaded, abandoned loaded, left the truck, dropped loaded. Ask where the last truck was left and whether freight was still on it. That screen is for the walk-off.

If either history is already written down, stop and read it. Check the name on CDLScan before the spend. It takes less than a minute, and it is where both populations actually sit — usually in different write-ups.

Frequently asked questions

Does a 0.8% overlap mean a no-show never later walks off a loaded trailer?

No. Rare together is not impossible. It means that in the reviews carriers left on CDLScan, a loaded walk-off and a no-show almost never share a paragraph. Do not run one screen and assume you covered both.

Why use lift instead of just the 0.8%?

Because 0.8% needs a baseline. No-shows are 5.3% of all reviews, so chance would put them in about 5.3% of loaded-trailer reviews. 0.8% is about a seventh of that. Lift 0.14 is the short way to say “far below chance.”

Why is the other share also 0.8%?

Because the two categories are almost the same size — 5.5% and 5.3% of all reviews — so the same overlap looks similar from both sides. Always name the denominator anyway.

Which failure is more common in the reviews?

Walking off a loaded trailer is in 5.5% of the reviews. No-shows are in 5.3%. They are similar in size. They are not the same people.

Will a clean PSP tell me which type I have?

No. Both types are usually unfiled. A clean packet means the filed items are clean. It does not classify the next failure.

What should I ask on the reference call?

For a thin onboarding history: did you buy them a ticket, and did they arrive. For a short completed stint: where was the last truck left, and was the trailer still loaded. Those are different questions.

Where do I look the name up?

On CDLScan, before you buy the ticket or assign the loaded trailer. The two populations are already written down. They are usually not written down together.