A state summary usually leads with volume: how many inspections, how many violations, how many trucks got parked. That is a fair starting point, but the headline hides the part that matters most for planning. So I'll give you the headline first, then split it apart.
The dataset covers August 2023 through October 2026, 39 months. In that window Missouri recorded 162,236 roadside inspections and 301,896 violations, about 1.86 violations per inspection. Out-of-service violations were 20.6% of all violations, compared with 17.6% nationally. Put another way, Missouri logged 38.4 out-of-service violations for every 100 inspections. The full state breakdown is on the Missouri insights page.
The buckets do not add up
Missouri's driver, vehicle, and hazmat counts total about 106,000 violations. The state's overall count is 301,896, so roughly 195,000 violations fall outside those three buckets in this dataset. Do not assume they are a rounding error or add the buckets up to get the total.
The out-of-service counts have the same problem. Driver, vehicle, and hazmat out-of-service counts sum to 62,587, slightly more than the stated total of 62,263. The categories likely overlap or are defined differently. I would not treat any single sum as exact. When I compare rates, I compare inside each bucket: out-of-service count divided by violation count for that bucket.
Vehicles carry most of the gap
| Bucket | MO violations | MO out of service | MO OOS share | National OOS share | |---|---|---|---|---| | Driver | 35,080 | 12,965 | 37.0% | 24.1% | | Vehicle | 70,373 | 49,298 | 70.0% | 24.0% | | Hazmat | 996 | 324 | 32.5% | 26.6% |
Vehicle violations are out of service about 70% of the time in Missouri, against 24.0% nationally. That is nearly three times the national share, and it is the largest gap in the table. Vehicle violations are also the bulk of the bucketed count: 70,373 of the 106,449 total.
An out-of-service designation means the vehicle or driver cannot continue until the condition is corrected. When seven in ten vehicle violations end that way, the practical question for a fleet is less "will an inspector find something?" and more "will the thing they find be serious enough to stop the truck where it stands?"
What the counts cannot tell me is why. A high out-of-service share could reflect which vehicles get pulled, inspector practice, the mix of equipment and carriers operating in the state, or maintenance gaps. The dataset gives counts, not causes. I would not present this as proof that Missouri inspectors are harsher, because nothing in these numbers shows that.
Drivers: a smaller gap, still present
Driver violations go out of service 37.0% of the time in Missouri, against 24.1% nationally. That is a real difference, but it is about half the size of the vehicle gap in proportional terms.
Hazmat shows 996 violations with 324 out of service, or 32.5%, against 26.6% nationally. That sample is small enough that a handful of inspections can move the number noticeably. Read it as a flag to check, not a finding.
What a fleet should do with this
- Split your own out-of-service data by bucket. An overall rate hides whether your problem is vehicles, drivers, or both.
- Pull your Missouri inspections for the same window. Check which vehicle conditions ended in out-of-service. Repeat findings on the same units matter more than a single write-up.
- Treat state averages as context. They include every carrier operating in the state. They are a benchmark for the environment, not a score on your company.
- Watch the time window. Thirty-nine months is long enough to show a trend, but it averages across fleets that changed over that period.
If you want to see where Missouri sits relative to other states, the state map is the place to start. The insights hub has the broader comparisons. The primary rules behind out-of-service decisions are in the federal regulations, which you can read in full on the eCFR's Title 49 page, and FMCSA's CSA program site explains how roadside results feed into carrier monitoring.
Key takeaways
- Missouri's vehicle violations are out of service 70.0% of the time, against 24.0% nationally.
- Driver violations are out of service 37.0% of the time, against 24.1% nationally.
- The bucket counts do not sum to the state total, so compare rates within each bucket.
- Counts show where the gap is, not why it exists. Check your own data before drawing conclusions.