diff --git a/hack/verify-shellcheck.sh b/hack/verify-shellcheck.sh
index f97158f7b57..165522d8e5b 100755
--- a/hack/verify-shellcheck.sh
+++ b/hack/verify-shellcheck.sh
@@ -25,6 +25,9 @@ KUBE_ROOT=$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")/..
 source "${KUBE_ROOT}/hack/lib/init.sh"
 source "${KUBE_ROOT}/hack/lib/util.sh"
 
+# allow overriding docker cli, which should work fine for this script
+DOCKER="${DOCKER:-docker}"
+
 # required version for this script, if not installed on the host we will
 # use the official docker image instead. keep this in sync with SHELLCHECK_IMAGE
 SHELLCHECK_VERSION="0.7.1"
@@ -105,7 +108,7 @@ if ${HAVE_SHELLCHECK}; then
   shellcheck "${SHELLCHECK_OPTIONS[@]}" "${all_shell_scripts[@]}" || res=$?
 else
   echo "Using shellcheck ${SHELLCHECK_VERSION} docker image."
-  docker run \
+  "${DOCKER}" run \
     --rm -v "${KUBE_ROOT}:${KUBE_ROOT}" -w "${KUBE_ROOT}" \
     "${SHELLCHECK_IMAGE}" \
   shellcheck "${SHELLCHECK_OPTIONS[@]}" "${all_shell_scripts[@]}" || res=$?