Paid travel and a loaded walk-off are different people

A paid flight that never becomes a start and a loaded trailer left at a stop 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 tenth as often as chance alone would produce. Screen for one and you will not catch the other.

Among the reviews carriers left on CDLScan, 6.0% mention paid travel with no arrival. 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 0.6% also mention walking off a loaded trailer. If the two events were independent, you would expect about 5.5% — the loaded-trailer share of all reviews. The observed overlap is about a tenth of chance. Lift is 0.11. Flip the pair and 0.7% of loaded-trailer reviews also mention paid travel. 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

Paid travel with no arrival is an onboarding loss. You spent a flight ticket, a hotel, a recruiter’s week. You did not hand over a unit. The language is flight ticket, plane ticket, booked flight, never showed, ticket never, paid flight, bus ticket.

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 paid travel is the rest of the empty-chair cluster. Drugs or alcohol sit in 31.3% of paid-travel reviews. A no-show sits in 27.5%. Going unreachable sits in 15.6%. Theft sits in 10.6%. An abandoned truck sits in only 8.4% — against a 33.5% base rate, that is lift 0.25, far below chance. A loaded trailer is even thinner.

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%. Paid travel is not on that list. A no-show is not on that list.

Stay away and waste your time are a different register. In 42.3% of paid-travel reviews the carrier also writes a verdict. In 33.2% of loaded-trailer 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: 27.5% of paid-travel reviews also mention a no-show, about five times chance. That is unpacked in paid travel and a no-show. Paid travel as its own climb is in paid travel with no arrival. The loaded-trailer climb is in walking off a loaded trailer. 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 paid ticket 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 ticket-and-no-show, 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 paid travel with no arrival ran 1.7% in 2018, 3.4% in 2019, 3.5% in 2020, 6.1% in 2021, 6.2% in 2022, 6.1% in 2023, 7.1% in 2024, and 5.7% in 2025. I stop that line at 2025. 2026 is still open.

Loaded-trailer mentions 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. Both problems grew. 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 unused flight ticket 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 31.3% of paid-travel reviews and only as a quieter companion on the loaded-trailer side. 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. Paid travel is common enough in what carriers bother to write down, a loaded walk-off 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: search the name for paid travel, never showed, flight ticket, didn’t make orientation. 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 0.6% 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, paid travel with no arrival and a loaded walk-off almost never share a paragraph. Do not run one screen and assume you covered both.

Why use lift instead of just the 0.6%?

Because 0.6% needs a baseline. Walking off a loaded trailer is 5.5% of all reviews, so chance would put it in about 5.5% of paid-travel reviews. 0.6% is about a tenth of that. Lift 0.11 is the short way to say “far below chance.”

Why is the other share 0.7%?

Because the base changed. 0.7% of loaded-trailer reviews also mention paid travel. Same overlap, counted from the other side. Always name the denominator.

Which failure is more common in the reviews?

Paid travel with no arrival is in 6.0% of the reviews. Walking off a loaded trailer is in 5.5%. 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.