Brokers are getting a look inside carrier operations: Tenstreet launches CarrierProtect vetting after Montgomery

Freight brokers are about to be able to look past a carrier's public record and into how it actually runs — how it hires drivers, how it trains them, and what it does when a driver drives unsafely — under a new vetting product Tenstreet announced, according to GlobeNewswire on Oct. 26. CarrierProtect, from the Tulsa-based driver lifecycle platform, lets carriers showcase their safety and compliance practices while brokers make selection decisions drawing on what Tenstreet calls the industry's largest interconnected network.

The gap the product is built to fill is the one between the public file and daily operations. Brokers already have access to public information like operating authority, inspection history, crash data and other safety records, Tenstreet notes — but that information does not always reflect carriers' day-to-day operations and may be insufficient in today's legal environment. CarrierProtect is powered by 20 years of safety and compliance data from thousands of carriers of all sizes, and is designed to help brokers vet how carriers hire drivers, with insight into work experiences, safety history and qualification records; understand safety processes through ongoing training schedules and documented responses to unsafe driving; assess compliance practices by showing whether Driver Qualification Files are current and accurately reflect a carrier's active driver population; and document carrier selection decisions with a time-stamped record of the information considered.

"Tenstreet has spent 20 years helping carriers make better decisions about the drivers they put on the road. CarrierProtect extends that visibility to brokers while giving compliant carriers opportunities to showcase effective safety practices," said Tim Crawford, Tenstreet's CEO. "By giving brokers a more complete picture of how carriers hire, train, and manage safety and compliance, we can create a more transparent transportation ecosystem."

One design choice is deliberate, and small carriers should notice it: instead of reducing the information to a single safety score, CarrierProtect groups individual metrics into quartiles to show how a carrier compares to its peers while giving brokers visibility into the underlying data. Tenstreet says the approach provides brokers with several data points to justify their carrier decisions — which cuts both ways for a carrier being vetted: there is no single number to fail, but also no single number to hide behind, and the underlying hiring, training and file-keeping practices are themselves the evidence.

The launch's timing is legal, not incidental. Tenstreet frames it against the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC, which allows negligent-hiring claims against freight brokers to proceed under state law and underscores the importance of carrier vetting and documentation. That is the same liability weather CDLWire's readers have been watching all month — a Texas judge's decision this month to uphold a verdict of more than $600 million plus interest against a national broker, on a record where the hired carrier held a Satisfactory FMCSA rating, has made one point unavoidable in the industry: the federal file alone may no longer be a broker's defense, so brokers are buying private files instead.

The small-carrier side of the launch runs through a tool many owner-operators already have. Tenstreet extends the visibility to owner-operators and small fleets through Pulse Fleet, a free solution built into Driver Pulse, the company's mobile app. Pulse Fleet helps smaller carriers manage driver files, documents, equipment, training and other day-to-day responsibilities, while sharing their safety and compliance practices with brokers through CarrierProtect. Tenstreet's platform, founded in 2006, is used by thousands of motor carriers and private fleets for driver marketing, recruiting, onboarding, safety, fuel efficiency and retention, and the company says millions of drivers have used it to apply for their next job.

The practical takeaway: carrier selection is moving from public records to internal practices, and that shift rewards paperwork discipline. If you run a small fleet or lease on your own authority, the things brokers will increasingly see are exactly the things that live in your files — whether every active driver has a current Driver Qualification File, whether training is scheduled and documented, and whether an unsafe-driving event produced a written response. Keeping those current, and using a free tool like Pulse Fleet to make them visible, is becoming part of winning freight, not back-office housekeeping. What the launch does not establish is just as important: Tenstreet's announcement claims no broker adoption numbers, no insurance benefit and no guarantee that a well-documented carrier wins the load — only that the file brokers will judge is getting deeper.