DataQs now has clocks: 21, 21, and 45 days. A wrong inspection still sits on the CSA score until the state answers

What the notice actually said

DataQs lives at dataqs.fmcsa.dot.gov. You file a Request for Data Review when the roadside record is wrong — wrong VIN, wrong time, a crash coded preventable that was not, an inspection that belongs to someone else. Until the state grants it, the datapoint still sits in the system insurers and brokers scrape. That sentence did not change on April 15, 2026. The clocks around it did.

The upgrade is process, not a new “delete my CSA” button. It sits inside the Pro-Trucker Package and follows comments on a July 31, 2025 Federal Register notice. MCSAP states must run a three-step independent review: initial 21 days, reconsideration 21, final 45. Initial review cannot be the same officer who wrote the citation saying no. Reconsideration is supposed to be independent. Final review is a senior person or a panel.

FMCSA tied the clocks to MCSAP. If you take the grant, you run the clock. States must publish a DataQs Implementation Plan — backlog, and how they will not stall again. Illinois takes MCSAP. Illinois will have a plan on the clock like other funded states. That is not a promise every RDR is granted. It is a promise the file is supposed to move.

Volume is why anyone bothered. Trade press cited more than 71,000 requests in 2024, more than 8,300 of them crash-related. A portal without a deadline is how those sit. A portal with a deadline is still not a deleted violation. Brokers who treat a pending DataQ as a cleaned BASIC are quoting a wish, not a dock.

What it changes on Monday

We file DataQs when the record is actually wrong. We do not file them as a rate negotiation. A broker who says “your BASIC is ugly, take $50 less” is quoting a score, not a live-load. If the datapoint is wrong, we use the portal. If it is right, we live with it and we do not pretend a 21-day clock is a discount.

A live load does not wait on a 45-day final review. Safety still owns the file. Monday’s quote assumes the inspections we actually have, not the ones we have asked a state to fix. See the one-year scorecard for where this sits in the package, and For Brokers if you want the packet instead of a CSA lecture.

Drivers can file for data that belongs to them; we handle carrier-level items in safety. Either way, the datapoint stays until the state grants the RDR. Do not tell a shipper the ticket is “already gone” because someone clicked submit. Portal: dataqs.fmcsa.dot.gov.

NCCDB is a different hole. DataQs corrects safety-record data. NCCDB takes complaints against movers, brokers, and similar. Filing the wrong one is how a VIN typo becomes a consumer complaint it never was. NCCDB note if you are in that file.

What we will — and will not — do

Safety still owns the DataQ. We will file when the record is wrong, and we will not file as theater to win a nickel on a rate. A pending review is not a cleaned packet.

We will not hold a live load for a 45-day final step, and we will not tell a broker the BASIC is frozen because an RDR is open. The truck runs on the record that exists this morning.

Questions on a specific inspection: +1 (847) 702-8181, ask for safety. Bring the report number. We cannot fix a feeling; we can file a fact.