Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday his department will rescind an Obama administration-era policy that dismissed English language proficiency requirements for commercial motor vehicle drivers.
Duffy said in a news release that he is following up on an executive order issued by President Donald Trump earlier in the day that prioritizes safety on the nation's roads. Duffy said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA, will take immediate steps to execute the executive order and strengthen English language requirements.
"Federal law is clear, a driver who cannot sufficiently read or speak English — our national language — and understand road signs is unqualified to drive a commercial motor vehicle in America," Duffy said in a statement. "This common sense standard should have never been abandoned. This Department will always put America's truck drivers first."
The new order by Trump, who signed an executive order in March making English the official language of the United States, reversed a June 2016 directive by the Obama administration that eliminated requirements for federal inspectors to suspend drivers of commercial motor vehicles for English language proficiency violations when conducting safety investigations.
Formal driver interviews to confirm such violations also weren't conducted during roadside inspections. Further, the memo, revealed in an April 10 letter from Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., to Duffy, stated that ''if the driver cannot read, write, or speak English but can communicate sufficiently with the inspector/investigator, they should not be cited" for such a violation.
"This is a big problem in the trucking community, that unless you're in that community you might not know, but there's a lot of communication problems between truckers on the road with federal officials and local officials as well, which obviously is a public safety risk," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday in a briefing to new media members that was separate from her press briefing earlier in the day.
"We're going to ensure that our truckers, who are the backbone of our economy, are all able to speak English. That's a very common sense policy in the United States of America," she said.
In a fact sheet regarding Trump's executive order issued Monday, the White House said the president "believes that English is a nonnegotiable safety requirement for professional drivers, as they should be able to read and understand traffic signs; communicate with traffic safety officers, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station personnel; and provide and receive feedback and directions in English."
The Transportation Department said the FMCSA has documented cases in which the driver's inability to read signs and speak English might have contributed to a series of fatal crashes.
In 2019, a semitruck driver traveling down a congested highway at almost 100 mph blew past several signs that warned of steep grades and dangerous curves. The crash killed four people and injured others. In January, a fatal collision in West Virginia involved a driver fleeing another crash who required an interpreter for the crash investigation.
"We thank the Trump administration for responding to our concerns on the uneven application of this existing regulation, and we look forward to working with FMCSA and the law enforcement community on an objective, consistent, and effective enforcement standard," Dan Horvath, senior vice president of regulatory and safety policy for the American Trucking Associations, said in a statement.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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