Four of America's Best-Known Moving Companies Are Failing FMCSA Safety Standards Right Now

United, Atlas, North American, and Allied Van Lines are all currently tripping the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's intervention thresholds in four of six safety categories — simultaneously. That's not the agency's "watch list." That's the line at which FMCSA's own rulebook says regulators should be opening cases.

TATTOO Foundation · Auto-drafted from FMCSA public records. Reviewed before publication.

Hire one of the four largest household-mover brands in America this week and the company driving your refrigerator across the country is, by the federal safety regulator's own measurement, performing badly enough to warrant intervention. Not just a little bad. Four out of six BASIC categories badly, all at the same time, at every single one of them.

The four brands — United Van Lines LLC (USDOT 77949, 4,731 power units), Atlas Van Lines Inc (USDOT 125550, 2,731 power units), North American Van Lines Inc (USDOT 70851, 1,333 power units), and Allied Van Lines Inc (USDOT 76235, 1,056 power units) — are not new entrants or fly-by-night operators. They are the names painted on the side of the truck when a family in suburban America hires a "real" moving company. Three of them trace lineages to the 1920s and 1930s. United and Allied both belong to SIRVA, the publicly-traded relocation conglomerate. North American Van Lines is part of SIRVA Worldwide Inc. as well. Atlas operates independently as Atlas World Group.

And right now, according to FMCSA's own publicly-published Safety Measurement System data captured by the SuperTrucker spine database on the snapshot date used for this report, every one of them is sitting above the agency's intervention threshold in four BASIC categories.

What "BASIC intervention threshold" actually means

FMCSA's Safety Measurement System scores every interstate carrier on six categories — Unsafe Driving, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Driver Fitness, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance, and Hazardous Materials Compliance. Each category has its own intervention threshold, calibrated by carrier type. When a carrier's percentile in that category crosses the threshold — meaning it's worse than the cohort the agency compares it to — FMCSA's own intervention model flags the carrier as eligible for follow-up enforcement: roadside inspection focus, off-site investigation, on-site investigation, or compliance review.

The thresholds exist because the agency lacks the resources to investigate every carrier. They're how regulators triage. A carrier sitting at or above the threshold in any single BASIC is the agency telling itself, in writing, that this operator has earned a closer look.

"Four out of six is not a near-miss. It's the agency's own data saying these carriers have earned regulator attention across most of how trucking safety is measured."

The pattern, not the individual case

FMCSA has not published a public reason or enforcement notice tied to this particular snapshot for any of the four carriers. The Foundation reached out for comment ahead of publication; no responses had been received at press time. The pattern itself — four major brand-name household movers, all at four-of-six breach at the same time — is what's worth examining.

These are also the carriers that handle the moves the public considers "safe by default": the corporate-relocation packages, the military PCS contracts, the customers who specifically pay a premium for the brand because they don't want a fly-by-night operator. The pricing premium for hiring a brand-name mover is, in significant part, a safety premium. The data does not currently support that premium.

It does not follow from a BASIC breach alone that any specific accident, injury, or compliance failure happened to any specific customer. Carriers above the threshold continue to operate legally; the threshold is an internal FMCSA triage signal, not a permit suspension. But it is a signal — calibrated by the federal regulator itself — that something in the operating model warrants intervention.

The Foundation's read

The TATTOO Foundation publishes this data because most working drivers, including the ones moving boxes for these companies, cannot easily see the picture above. Drivers can read their own Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP) report. They cannot easily see the carrier-level BASIC scores against industry cohorts; that signal sits behind a website most drivers don't visit and a vocabulary most drivers haven't been taught.

If you are a driver currently working for one of the four carriers above and your operation involves working conditions you have concerns about, the Foundation operates a 24/7 line answered by Rigs, our intake agent, at 1-216-200-7447. Calls are confidential. The Foundation also runs a free AI integration grant program for small carriers who want to compete with brands like these on transparency and modern safety culture, not nameplate alone.

If you're a consumer planning a move: FMCSA's SAFER website publishes the safety snapshot for every USDOT-licensed carrier. The four DOT numbers above are clickable URLs. So is every household mover you might hire.