US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Friday that truck and bus drivers will be required to take commercial driver’s license tests in English as the Trump administration expands enforcement efforts aimed at improving safety in the industry and removing drivers it says are not qualified. Duffy said the policy is intended to ensure drivers can understand English well enough to read road signs and communicate with law enforcement officers during traffic stops and inspections.
The announcement comes as the Transportation Department has been moving to push states and licensing actors toward stricter standards for commercial drivers, including after federal actions tied to fatal crashes. Duffy said Florida has already started administering commercial driver’s license tests in English, and he pointed to other states that, he said, have allowed commercial license testing in other languages despite federal requirements to demonstrate English proficiency.
Duffy said officials are also targeting what he described as gaps in how some states and outside contractors handle English-proficiency testing for commercial licenses. He said some states have hired other companies to administer the commercial driver’s license tests and that those companies were not enforcing the standards drivers are supposed to meet to demonstrate their driving and English skills. Duffy cited California as a state that, he said, previously offered tests in 20 other languages.
In describing the enforcement approach, Duffy said states are expected to ensure drivers can speak English before granting a commercial license, and that law enforcement is then supposed to check drivers’ language skills during traffic stops or inspections. He said drivers who cannot communicate effectively are supposed to be pulled off the road. He also cited a recent federal effort that involved 8,215 inspections and resulted in nearly 500 drivers being disqualified because of their English skills, and he said California later pulled more than 600 drivers off highways after initially resisting enforcement.
The administration’s announcement also referenced recent federal actions involving driver education and commercial license oversight. Duffy said the latest enforcement effort came days after the Transportation Department said 557 driving schools should close because they failed to meet basic safety standards, and he said officials have been aggressively going after states he described as having handed out commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants who should not have qualified after a fatal crash in August.
Duffy tied the push to safety concerns raised by fatal crashes, including one in Florida in which, he said, a truck driver who was not authorized to be in the United States made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash that killed three people. He also cited a crash in Indiana earlier this month that killed four members of an Amish community and said other fatal crashes have heightened concerns.
Beyond driver-language testing, Duffy said the administration will expand efforts to crack down on fraudulent trucking companies. He said the campaign will work to prevent fraudulent companies from getting into the business, continue to pursue questionable schools, and ensure states are complying with regulations for handing out commercial licenses. Duffy said 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.
Officials also said they are trying to make sure electronic logging devices used by drivers are accurate and that states follow rules intended to ensure drivers are qualified. Duffy said companies should face additional scrutiny as federal inspectors increase oversight, including through spot checks and compliance interventions aimed at reducing repeat problems.
As part of the broader enforcement push, Duffy described a problem he said has made it easier for fraudulent carriers to avoid consequences after crashes or other violations. He said companies can register by paying $300 and showing proof of insurance, and that they might not be audited for a year or more later; he also said audits may be done virtually, making it less likely to identify fraudulent companies. Officials said that has allowed “chameleon carriers” to register multiple times under different names and switch registrations after crashes.
Dan Horvath, chief operating officer for the American Trucking Associations, said in the report that the industry has long faced a lack of true enforcement and intervention with motor carriers that are operating. Horvath said only a small fraction of trucking companies ever undergo a full compliance review with an in-person inspection. He said the company-level enforcement problem has allowed carriers that were ordered to shut down to change their name and registration number and keep operating the same way.
The report also described enforcement that followed the Indiana crash. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration knocked the company employing the driver out of service and pulled DOT numbers assigned to two other companies linked to AJ Partners. It also said Tutash Express and Sam Express, in the Chicago area, were disqualified, and that it said the Aydana driving school that the trucker involved in the crash attended lost its certification. It added that immigration authorities arrested the driver and said he entered the country illegally, and it said authorities described the driver as pulling out and trying to go around a truck that had slowed in front of him before his truck slammed into an oncoming van.
Duffy said every American wants drivers behind 80,000-pound big rigs to be well-qualified and safe. He said the problems in trucking have been “allowed to rot and no one’s paying attention to it for decades,” and he said that once attention is paid, Americans get hurt. Duffy said: “Once you start to pay attention, you see that all these bad things have been happening. And the consequence of that is that Americans get hurt,” and added: “When we get on the road, we should expect that we should be safe. And that those who drive those 80,000-pound big rigs, that they are well-trained, they’re well-qualified, and they’re going to be safe.”