What 392.2-SLLEWA3 means in plain language
This violation comes down to one core idea: if your ability to drive safely is compromised — whether from exhaustion, sickness, medication, or anything else reducing your alertness — you are not supposed to be behind the wheel. The rule covers both starting a trip and continuing one already in progress. An officer doesn't need to catch you nodding off; visible signs of impairment or your own admission can be enough.
The "SLLEWA3" suffix signals that this is a state-level law citation tied to the underlying federal fatigue and illness standard. In practice, that means the inspector had authority under a specific state statute that mirrors or adopts the federal requirement, and the resulting citation lands in your federal CSA record just the same.
For a driver, the practical takeaway is simple: if you feel too tired or too sick to drive safely, stopping is your legal obligation — not just a courtesy. The regulation does not require you to be in a crash or to cause a near-miss before enforcement applies.
What our enforcement data actually shows
Across our database of 13 million+ inspections, 392.2-SLLEWA3 has accumulated 25,125 all-time citations, putting it at #110 out of 3,036 FMCSR codes by citation volume. That's a top-4% enforcement code — officers know it, write it regularly, and it appears far more often than most drivers expect.
The out-of-service rate tells an important story. Of those 25,125 citations, only 105 resulted in an OOS order — a rate of 0.4%. For context, the all-FMCSR average OOS rate across all codes is 31.4%. This code sits dramatically below that average, which means the overwhelming majority of drivers cited — 25,020 of them — kept rolling. You were cited, but you likely weren't parked.
That said, the volume is accelerating. Our inspection records show 16,487 citations in the last 12 months alone, and 3,188 in just the last 90 days. The monthly trend data tells the story: citations climbed from 576 in April 2025 to a peak of 1,675 in July 2025, held above 1,100 per month through early 2026, and hit 1,621 in March 2026. Enforcement of this code is not slowing down.
The CSA severity weight for 392.2-SLLEWA3 is 8 — one of the higher weights in the Unsafe Driving BASIC. Even without an OOS order, this citation adds meaningful pressure to your CSA score and your carrier's safety measurement.
Who gets cited most
Looking at the last 180 days, our inspection records show Iowa leading all states with 667 citations, followed by New Jersey at 625 citations and Washington at 438 citations. All three of those top states came in at a 0.0% OOS rate — meaning citations were written but drivers were not parked.
The OOS-rate picture shifts when you move down the list. California recorded 334 citations with an OOS rate of 5.4%, and Illinois logged 247 citations with a 2.0% OOS rate. If you're running lanes through California, the chance that this citation turns into a parked truck is meaningfully higher than in most other states — worth knowing before you push through tired.
On the carrier side, our data shows fleets such as MUNOZ TRUCKING CORP (USDOT 855861) with 109 all-time citations and MENDEZ TRUCKING INC (USDOT 1445326) with 82 citations appearing at the top of the frequency table. High citation counts at the fleet level often reflect high exposure miles and aggressive enforcement corridors rather than any single cause.
How severe is this compared to similar codes
The broader 392.2 family — all labeled "Operating a CMV while ill or fatigued" — is one of the most-cited groups in federal enforcement. The parent code 392.2 alone carries 1,208,164 all-time citations at a 0.8% OOS rate, dwarfing the 25,125 recorded for 392.2-SLLEWA3. That volume gap reflects how many different state-law suffixes and sub-codes inspectors can use to write essentially the same underlying violation.
The code 392.2-SLLSR has 191,232 all-time citations at a 0.1% OOS rate — seven times the volume of 392.2-SLLEWA3 but an even lower OOS rate, suggesting it's written frequently as a companion or documentation code. Meanwhile, 392.2-SLLEQP shows 72,352 citations but a notably higher OOS rate of 2.4% — the highest in this peer group — indicating that when equipment-related fatigue factors enter the picture, inspectors are more likely to park the truck.
At a severity weight of 8, 392.2-SLLEWA3 hits your CSA Unsafe Driving BASIC harder than most codes in this family regardless of the OOS outcome. One citation moves the needle.
How to avoid it
The co-occurring violation patterns from our 90-day data offer a clear map of what inspectors are seeing during the same stops where 392.2-SLLEWA3 is written. Use that map to build your pre-trip habits.
- Check tire load compliance before departure. 393.75G-TAOW (tires — all others weight carried exceeds tire load limit) appeared in 267 shared inspections with this code in the last 90 days. An overloaded or under-inflated tire is a flag that the entire vehicle may be running outside spec — and it draws inspector attention to everything, including your condition.
- Have your periodic inspection documentation on hand. 396.17C-PI (no proof of periodic inspection) showed up in 165 shared inspections. Missing paperwork signals a maintenance culture that inspectors associate with fatigued or pressured drivers. Carry your PI docs; don't give an officer a reason to look harder.
- Know your own sub-codes. The most frequent companions in the last 90 days — 392.2-SLLEWG3 (541 shared inspections), 392.2-SLLEWA1 (350), and 392.2-SLLEWA2 (328) — are sister codes in the same fatigue/illness family. When one is written, others follow in the same inspection. A single stop can produce multiple severity-8 hits to your CSA score.
- Pre-trip your physical readiness like you pre-trip your equipment. Peterbilt, Kenworth, and Mack units dominate the vehicle makes in our citation data — these are workhorse trucks on long-haul and regional routes where fatigue accumulates. Before you turn the key on any of these platforms, run an honest self-assessment: hours since your last sleep, any illness symptoms, any medication that affects alertness.
- If you're sick, document it and stop. An officer who observes signs of impairment has what they need to write this citation. If you're genuinely ill, a documented stop and a call to dispatch is far less costly than a severity-8 Unsafe Driving citation that stays in your PSP record for three years.