Mandatory English Language Testing Implemented for All Commercial Driver’s License Applicants

In a decisive move to enhance road safety, the Trump administration has mandated that all commercial driver’s license (CDL) exams be conducted exclusively in English. This initiative aims to ensure that truckers and bus drivers are adequately qualified, aligning with broader efforts to remove underqualified drivers from the roads.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy unveiled this policy change, emphasizing the necessity for drivers to possess sufficient English language skills. This proficiency is essential not only for reading road signs but also for effective communication with law enforcement. Florida has already begun implementing this English-only testing requirement.

Presently, many states permit CDL tests in multiple languages, despite federal regulations mandating English proficiency. For instance, California administers these tests in 20 different languages. Furthermore, Secretary Duffy highlighted that some states outsource the testing process to private companies, which often fail to enforce the necessary English standards.

“The third-party testers are part of the problem,” Duffy remarked, pointing out that they sometimes administer exams to individuals who have attended subpar driving schools.

Duffy underscored the importance of having competent individuals operating large commercial vehicles, a sentiment widely shared among Americans concerned with road safety.

The campaign will also now expand to go prevent fraudulent trucking companies from getting into the business while continuing to go after questionable schools and ensure states are complying with all the regulations for handing out commercial licenses.

Earlier this week, the Transportation Department said 557 driving schools should close because they failed to meet basic safety standards. And the department has been aggressively going after states that handed out commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants who shouldn’t have qualified for them ever since a fatal crash in August.

A truck driver who Duffy says wasn’t authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. Other fatal crashes since then, including one in Indiana that killed four earlier this month, have only heightened concerns.

Duffy said that the registration system and requirements for trucking companies will be strengthened while Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration inspectors conduct more spot checks of trucks and commercial driver’s license schools.

Currently, companies only have to pay a few hundred dollars and show proof of insurance to get registered to operate, and then they might not be audited until a year or more later.

That has made it easy for fraudulent companies that are known in the industry as chameleon carriers to register multiple times under different names and then simply switch names and registration numbers to avoid any consequences after crashes or other violations.

Officials are also trying to make sure that the electronic logging devices drivers use are accurate, and that states are following all the regulations to ensure drivers are qualified to get commercial licenses.

After that Indiana crash, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration knocked the company that employed the driver out of service and pulled the DOT numbers assigned to two other companies that were linked to AJ Partners. Tutash Express and Sam Express in the Chicago area were also disqualified, and the Aydana driving school that the trucker involved in the crash attended lost its certification.

Immigration authorities arrested that driver, Bekzhan Beishekeev from Kyrgystan because the 30-year old entered the country illegally. Authorities say he pulled out and tried to go around a truck that had slowed in front of him and his truck slammed into an oncoming van.

In December, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration took action to decertify up to 7,500 of the 16,000 schools nationwide but that included many defunct operations.

Duffy said the companies involved in that Indiana crash were all registered at the same apartment. In other cases there might be hundreds of companies registered at a single address.