A horrible crash on a highway in Florida let three people dead and a few more injured. The driver who is accused of causing it – an illegal immigrant who crossed the border in 2018 – should never have been behind the wheel of a commercial truck.
This tragedy is not an isolated matter. It emphasizes the deep defects in how the federal government reads and arranges commercial truck drivers, with life on the line every day.
That is why the command of President Donald Trump to assess any non-domicilated Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) that has been issued in recent years is such an important step forward for safety on the highway. It represents a huge victory in the attempt to prevent further pointless deaths caused by unqualified or incorrectly licenseed truck drivers.
Last week’s deadly crash in Florida emphasizes the deep defects in how the federal government likes and arranges commercial truck drivers, with lives on the line every day. (St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office)
President Trump and Transport Minister Sean Duffy understand that the current licensing system has been broken and needs urgent reform.
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Not so long ago, truck drivers had to produce a birth certificate, speak English and confirm the state residence before they could even be eligible for a CDL. If a driver could not speak English, they couldn’t even sit in front of the exam.
But today the requirements have been watered down: a work permit or foreign visa is sufficient to qualify for a non-domicilated CDL, regardless of whether the driver can read highway signs in English.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) of the Department of Transportation was supposed to increase the bar in 2022 with the rules for training at entry level. Instead, those rules are littered with meshes. Employers, municipalities and online video providers suspect that schools can “self-certify” commercial driver training with virtually no supervision.
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As Teamsters President Sean O’Brien recently told the Senate of the Senate, a 16-year-old needs a recognized instructor to drive a sedan, but unqualified drivers send 80,000 pound trucks along the motorways of America with little supervision. The result is unbridled fraud, unqualified drivers and unsafe motorways.
The statistics are sobering. Truck accidents killed 5,472 people in 2023, an increase of 40% compared to 2014. That risk is only growing. More than 30,000 commercial driving schools are now “approved” by the FMCSA, but only about 2,100 actually have a permit through states.
Large employers often reject almost half of the driver’s applicants due to strict safety standards, but 90% of the industry consists of small operators with fewer than 10 trucks – companies that often do not miss compliance departments and hire them from questionable schools. These are the companies behind so much of the deadly headlines that we see every week.
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Even the American Trucking Association has warned that the rules of the FMCSA are “insufficiently robust” to protect the audience against fraudulent CDL mills. The study by President Trump and Secretary Duffy, in combination with their executive order that require the English skill for truck drivers, can finally remove unqualified operators – if maintained.
Truck drivers are the backbone of our economy, which move 70% of all goods, supplement the shelves of the supermarket and reach medicines and fuel for every community. They deserve strong standards, fair wages and a safe industry.
That is why the truck industry welcomes President Trump and Duffy secretary to take action. But we can’t wait. With an average of 3000 truck accidents and 100 fatalities every week, the motorways of America urgently need reform.
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The tragedy in Florida should be a wake-up call: lax license standards and weak enforcement cost American life. It is time to close fraudulent training schools, enforce the English skill requirements and to restore integrity for the CDL system.
Only then will we protect American drivers, American truck drivers and the families who share the road every day.
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