Logbook mentions in reviews are falling, not gone

A falling share is not a closed file. Logbook and hours problems show up less often in carrier reviews than they did eight years ago, and that is real. What has not gone away is the company those reviews keep: an abandoned truck, a crash, a late load, a fight with dispatch. If your screen treats a quieter logbook line as “this one is fine,” you will miss the week around it.

Among the reviews carriers left on CDLScan since 2018, the share that mention logbook and hours problems fell from 5.0% in 2018 to 3.7% in 2025. Those figures describe the reviews, not drivers in general: carriers write when something went wrong, so the shares tell you what shows up once someone bothers to report it. Across the full period, logbook and hours problems are in 4.6% of the reviews in the set CDLScan shared with me.

The drop is not a straight line

The share of reviews mentioning logbook and hours problems ran 5.0% in 2018, 5.8% in 2019, 6.5% in 2020, 5.5% in 2021, 5.5% in 2022, 4.6% in 2023, 4.3% in 2024, and 3.7% in 2025. I stop the trend at 2025. 2026 is still open; using it as an endpoint would fake a drop the year has not earned.

2020 is the peak you should not smooth over. The share climbed into 6.5% and then eased, year by year, back below the 2018 floor. That is the opposite shape from abandonment, which roughly doubled over the same stretch. Carriers did not stop writing about problems. They wrote about different ones. How we count these shares 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.

I would not read the decline as ELDs fixing hiring. A logbook complaint in a carrier review is not a roadside inspection. It is a desk saying the logs did not match the trips, the ELD came off, or the driver did not know how to use the device. Official hours enforcement and a previous employer writing “log book” are related screens, not the same one.

What a logbook write-up actually looks like

Carriers write about a log book, log books, HOS rules, a disconnected ELD, an ELD device the driver did not know how to use, or trips that did not match. The language sits next to an abandoned truck, a truck and trailer, a truck stop, a loaded trailer, always late, and a first load. This is not a paperwork-only complaint in the reviews that make it into this set.

The companions make that plain. In 36.2% of these reviews the carrier also mentions an abandoned truck. In 22.3% they also mention aggression, rudeness, or threats. In 21.3% they also mention a crash or damage. In 17.6% they also mention late or missed deliveries. In 15.3% they also mention theft or money games. In 9.5% they also mention a driver going unreachable. In 7.4% they also mention equipment or a fuel card that never came back.

Read those companions as sequence, not as one personality type. Logs that stop matching, then loads running late, then a truck left at a stop, is a different recovery from a disconnected ELD on day one. The first one costs you a customer and a CSA conversation. The second one costs you an orientation seat. Both show up next to “log book.”

A stay-away recommendation sits in 32.7% of these reviews. That is the author’s verdict, not a description of the driver. I treat it as a signal that the desk was angry enough to write, not as a fact you can put in a file.

What was visible before the logs stopped matching

A logbook problem is expensive when it is the week before a walk-off, not when it is a training gap you can fix in orientation. The useful question is what in the file should have slowed you down.

The pattern I’d watch for is a previous carrier who already used the same words: log book, disconnected ELD, HOS rules, always late. Those words are not a violation code on their own — some of them will also sit in PSP if someone inspected the driver — but the review is telling you the last desk already lived with it. I also watch the order of asks: a start date this week, a first load already promised, a phone that already drops during recruiting. None of those is proof. Together with a thin employment history, they are a reason to look the name up before you dispatch.

Typical sequence, built from how these reviews cluster, not from one person’s file: two carriers in a year and a hole between them. Slow references. They start. The first load is late. The logs do not match the trips. Dispatch gets shorter answers. The tractor is at a truck stop. In this corpus that is not a once-in-a-career fluke.

Do not collapse this into the abandonment screen you already run, and do not skip it because the share is falling. Abandoned-truck mentions still sit in more than a third of these reviews. Longer on that walk-off: abandoned-truck mentions in reviews. Longer on the late loads that often come first: late deliveries in reviews. Longer on drugs and alcohol, which is a different screen: drug-test no-show screening.

Why the reports you already buy stay quiet on the rest

PSP, DAC, MVR, and the Clearinghouse hold what someone filed: a roadside inspection, a recorded crash, a failed test, a license action, a previous-employer reply that actually got answered. Hours violations that hit the roadside can show up in PSP. A disconnected ELD that never got inspected, a driver who did not know how to use the device, or a log that only the last dispatcher noticed, often will not. A clean PSP is doing its job when it is silent on an unfiled mess.

Previous-employer calls should catch it and often do not. The last carrier is busy, cautious, or answers the regulation and not the question you meant. “Eligible for rehire” can come back blank while the same desk will later say the logs did not match. The behavior lives in carrier-to-carrier memory, and most of that memory never becomes a report.

That is the argument for looking the name up in reviews other carriers already left. I am not going to pretend this is an independent study. CDLScan is the source, and I write from the data they share. This problem is less common in what carriers bother to write down than it was in 2020, and the packet you already run still will not hold the week around it.

What to do before you dispatch

Run the name before you hand over the keys. Search what previous carriers wrote, not only what the state and FMCSA stored. If you see log book, disconnected ELD, or HOS rules sitting next to always late or left the truck, treat that as a stop even when the MVR is dull.

Ask the candidate to walk the last two fleets. What ELD did they run. Did anyone pull them for hours. What will the previous carrier say if you call today. People who ran clean logs can usually tell that story without sanding off the device and the last conversation with safety. People whose logs did not match often skip the device and jump to home time or a dispatcher who “had it in for them.”

If they are already on a load, the question is not “are they eligible for rehire.” The question is whether anyone in the last year already wrote that this name’s logs stopped matching the trips.

The falling share is not a reason to stop checking. It is a reason to stop treating a quieter category as a closed one. Check the name on CDLScan before the spend. It takes less than a minute.

Frequently asked questions

Does 3.7% mean almost nobody has logbook problems anymore?

No. 3.7% is the share of 2025 reviews that mention logbook and hours problems, among reviews carriers left on CDLScan. Carriers write after a bad run. It is not a rate for all CDL holders, and a falling share is not zero.

Why ignore 2026 if the year is already on the chart?

Because 2026 is incomplete. Using a partial year as an endpoint would fake a drop the year has not earned. The last complete year is 2025 at 3.7%.

What changed after 2020?

The share peaked at 6.5% in 2020, then eased every completed year after that. Do not read that as hiring getting safer overall. Abandoned-truck mentions rose over the same stretch. The mix of what carriers bother to write down changed.

If PSP already shows hours, why read carrier reviews?

PSP holds what got inspected. A disconnected ELD, a driver who did not know the device, or logs that only the last dispatcher noticed, often never become a filing. The reviews are the unfiled week around the violation.

If PSP and MVR are clean, can I skip carrier reviews?

You can, and you will miss the class of problem these reviews are full of. Clean official reports mean the filed items are clean. A logbook complaint next to a walk-off is not always filed.

What should I ask on the call if the timeline looks thin?

Ask what ELD they ran, whether anyone pulled them for hours, and what the previous carrier will say if you call. Then go read what previous carriers already wrote.

Which related signal is worth a second screen?

An abandoned truck in the same history, and late or missed deliveries. Both travel with logbook write-ups often enough to matter. Neither will necessarily hit the reports you already buy.