Two hundred and thirty-nine Americans are dead on the nation’s highways, killed in crashes linked to commercial truck drivers who couldn’t speak English. Now the Trump administration is doing something about it.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced Monday a sweeping crackdown on fraudulent commercial driver’s license schools that have been churning out unqualified truckers, many of them illegal migrants, in violation of long-standing federal safety rules.
The emergency action shutters 270 driving schools across the country.
“What we are announcing is an emergency executive shut down of 110 driving schools,” Duffy explained during the announcement. “So, these are driving schools that account for 5,000 of the violations for English proficiency. What I mean by that is, you have to speak English to operate a commercial motor vehicle. I didn’t create that rule, President Trump didn’t create that rule. That rule has been in place for decades.”
The English proficiency requirement exists for obvious reasons. Truckers hauling 80,000-pound rigs down American highways need to read road signs, understand weigh station instructions, communicate with law enforcement, and respond to emergencies. Without basic English skills, they’re a danger to themselves and everyone sharing the road with them.
Yet school after school simply ignored the rule, passing students through who couldn’t meet the standard.
“We also have shut down 160 additional schools, these are schools that in essence, certify that they are qualified to train truck drivers,” Duffy continued. “However, they don’t have adequate space to put a potential driver in a truck and have them go around the cones and do the turns. They don’t have space to even allow the truck driver to actually get behind the wheel and drive. They have unlicensed instructors.”
Duffy placed the blame squarely on the previous administration. He criticized the Biden administration for dismantling “long standing safety rules that make sure we get well qualified drivers driving big rigs” and for allowing truck driving schools “to self-certify” their compliance with federal standards.
That self-certification system created a gaping loophole. Schools essentially operated on the honor system, and plenty of them had no honor. They took money from students, rubber-stamped their credentials, and sent them out onto highways where American families drive their kids to school and church.
The result was predictable. And deadly.
Duffy stated that 239 people have died on American roadways “in correlation with someone who was not proficient in the English language.” Each of those deaths represents a family shattered, a community diminished, a preventable tragedy that occurred because bureaucrats prioritized lax enforcement over public safety.
The crackdown targets fraud specifically connected to illegal migrants obtaining CDLs through these disreputable schools. The agencies are working together to address the pipeline that moved people without legal status, without English skills, and without proper training into the cabs of commercial trucks.
