President Donald Trump late last month gave his secretary of transportation 60 days to reverse federal guidance barring commercial truck inspectors from removing non-English-speaking truckers from the roads.
Secretary Sean Duffy did it in three weeks.
“I’m officially rescinding the reckless 2016 Obama guidance on English-language proficiency,” Duffy said in a speech Tuesday from Austin, Texas. That’s a reference to the 2016 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) memorandum instructing commercial truck inspectors not to remove non-English-proficient truckers from the roads.
The memorandum curbed enforcement of long-standing federal rules requiring commercial truck drivers to have enough English proficiency to read road signs, converse with the general public and keep written logs.
Trump called for its reversal in an April 28 executive order.
“We’re going to replace it with stronger enforcement procedures,” added Duffy. “Allowing drivers who cannot read stop signs or understand police officers’ instructions, to operate an 80,000 pound big rig threatens the safety of every American on our roadways.”
Wyoming’s lone U.S. House Rep. Harriet Hageman, a Republican, was a frontrunner on this issue, writing Duffy on April 10 to urge this action. Her urging also followed months of advocacy by the group American Truckers United, which formed last year after an illegal immigrant killed a truck driver in Colorado, and spent less than a year in jail.
Duffy said that American law enforcers logged more than 99,000 English proficiency violations in 2015, and 1,000 of those drivers were taken out of service.
In 2024 while inspectors were still operating under the memorandum, they logged 10,000 violations and took no truckers out of service, Duffy added.
Data from the National Safety Council shows fatal crashes involving large trucks rising consistently starting in 2016, from about 4,500 in the nation that year to 5,837 in 2022.
By contrast, those annual figures stayed below 4,000 from 2009 to 2014.
States Not Barred From Giving The Test In Other Languages
The executive order also called upon Duffy to review the security of commercial driver’s licenses, especially the conditions under which states issue non-domicile, or non-resident, CDLs.
A FMCSA official told Cowboy State Daily in a March 3 email that CDL testing regulations do not prohibit states from issuing the knowledge skills test in multiple languages.
Issuing CDLs is an issue under the states’ domains, Duffy conceded in his announcement speech.
Still, he said, his office is reviewing security procedures on how states give those and will “approve verification protocols” for both domestic and international credentials.
Wyoming issues non-domicile CDLs rarely, generally within the agriculture industry and only to people who are in the country legally, the Wyoming Department of Transportation told Cowboy State Daily previously.
American Truckers United co-founder Shannon Everett told the outlet at that time that Wyoming is not on its list of states that hand out non-domicile CDLs “recklessly,” but it does have a disproportionately high rate of commercial-truck-related fatalities.
Turning Your Backs On Us
Meanwhile, the signature count on a Change.org petition on behalf of truckers for whom English is not a first language continues to climb. It stood at nearly 5,000 signatures on May 9 and as of midday Wednesday sat at 7,317 signatures.
Addressed to the FMCSA and U.S. Department of Transportation, the petition demands:
- A “reasonable and extended timeline” for enforcement of the English-language rule;
- “Objective and consistent enforcement criteria” rather than inspectors’ subjective judgment calls;
- Free language training programs for CDL drivers who need support; and
- “Real legislation that protects truckers, not just more restrictions.”
“Accents, cultural differences, or imperfect grammar should not be a reason to end someone’s career,” says the petition. “We are professionals, we know the law, we do our jobs safely – even if we don’t speak perfect English. We all contribute to this country, and we all deserve equal respect on the road.”
The memorandum rescindment risks forcing thousands of truckers out of work and harming their families, says the petition.
The government needed numerous truckers to put their safety on the line during the COVID-19 pandemic, “and today it turns its back on us after having contributed to saving many lives in this blessed country,” wrote one signer, Orlando Alain.
The petition says that many states have been allowing CDL testing in other languages “for years,” and that it’s unfair to penalize drivers who got their CDLs lawfully with that concession.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
