U.S. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order that updates CVSA enforcement criteria, placing drivers out of service if they’re not proficient in English.
English proficiency has long been required to operate as a professional truck driver in the U.S. However, an Obama-era Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) enforcement memo, put into place in 2015, stopped enforcement officers from placing non-compliant drivers out of service. That softer approach is about to end.
The American Trucking Associations (ATA), in an April 10 letter to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, had appealed to the agency to “immediately provide an updated enforcement memorandum to ensure that this provision is enforced consistently during roadside inspections and on-site reviews.”
The U.S. is experiencing a widespread challenge with Mexican B-1 visa holders involved in cabotage – the moves of domestic loads between two U.S. locations. Addressing the Truckload Carriers Association conference this spring, ATA chief economist Bob Costello said: “It’s absolutely happening, and it’s happening a lot.”
He added some Mexican drivers are coerced into parking their trucks after crossing into the U.S. and taking assignments in U.S. fleet-owned trucks for domestic loads, “allowing companies to pay them lower wages than American drivers.”
English official language
In his April 28 executive order, Trump pointed out he recently designated English as the official language of the U.S. and noted it should be “a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers.”
“They should be able to read and understand traffic signs, communicate with traffic safety, border patrol, agricultural checkpoints, and cargo weight-limit station officers,” the order reads.
“Drivers need to provide feedback to their employers and customers and receive related directions in English. This is common sense. That is why federal law requires that, to operate a commercial vehicle, a driver must ‘read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.’ Yet this requirement has not been enforced in years, and America’s roadways have become less safe.”
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) quickly summoned a board meeting and passed an emergency provision that would make lack of English proficiency grounds for placing a driver out of service, effective June 25.
According to a CVSA update, a driver is to be placed out of service if they “cannot read and speak the English language sufficiently to communicate with the safety official to respond to official inquiries and directions in accordance with FMCSA enforcement guidance.”
“By adding English language proficiency to the out-of-service criteria, a commercial motor vehicle inspector may place a driver out of service if they cannot demonstrate proficiency in reading and speaking English,” the CVSA added in a media release.
Industry welcomes news
The news was immediately welcomed by U.S. trucking industry leaders. ATA senior vice-president of regulatory and safety policy, Dan Horvath, said in a statement: “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.”
It was a rare industry issue on which the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), which represents small business truckers, agreed with the ATA.
“Basic English skills are essential for reading critical road signs, understanding emergency instructions, and interacting with law enforcement,” OOIDA president Todd Spencer said. “Road signs save lives – but only when they’re understood…Today’s announcement is a welcome step toward restoring a common sense safety standard.”
While the target of the executive order may be Mexican B-1 visa abusers and related cabotage, it does raise the possibility that Canadian drivers – whether they be recent immigrants or French Canadian drivers from Quebec – could be caught off-guard.
Canadian officials react
“There will be no leeway,” warned Mike Millian, president of the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada (PMTC). “It won’t matter if you’re Canadian or Mexican. You have to be able to communicate in English. If it’s a French Canadian and they can only speak French, they’re going to be in trouble.”
Manan Gupta, president of immigration consulting firm Skylake Immigration, worries that the English skills of some recent immigrants may be deemed inadequate.
“Until recently, Canada’s Express Entry system prioritized transport occupations, including truck drivers, to address labor shortages, drawing immigrants from regions like South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa,” Gupta told Today’s Trucking. “Many of these newcomers, despite holding valid Canadian CDLs, may arrive with limited English proficiency.”
He’s also raised concerns that English proficiency will be determined solely by the enforcement officer at roadside, resulting in inconsistent decisions.
“The FMCSA has not mandated a standardized English proficiency test, leaving enforcement to inspectors’ judgment,” he said. “This lack of uniformity could unfairly impact new Canadians, particularly those with accents or partial fluency, even if they grasp essential traffic-related English. Being placed out of service can cause delays, income loss, and job insecurity. Cross-border trucking relies on strict, just-in-time schedules, and border delays can harm relationships with employers or clients. For many new Canadians who depend on trucking for economic stability, these disruptions could threaten their financial security.”
Those concerns are shared by PMTC’s Millian, who also cautioned that enforcement may be inconsistent if left to the discretion of individual officers.
“I think what is a concern for everybody is, what’s the test going to be? What standard are you going to hold the driver to? If you can read road signs and GPS or a road map, is that going to be sufficient? Or are you going to be looking for a higher standard?” Millian wondered. “We need some kind of official guidance as to how this test is going to be performed and conducted, because right now it’s widely being left up to the people at the side of the road who are going to be enforcing this. The driver may pass this English proficiency test at roadside by the DoT officer in upstate New York, but what about when he gets down to Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi?”
Such details on how the rule will be enforced at roadside were, at press time, still thin. Certainly, drivers can’t be held until they become proficient in English. Will a fleet be required to send another driver to cover the load?
“That would be my understanding,” Millian said. “That load and truck is going to have to stay there until somebody comes down that is proficient in English. If you’re out of service, you’re out of service.”
CVSA awaits FMCSA guidance
A CVSA official told TruckNews.com that it will address these concerns by following a yet-to-be-developed, standardized test for roadside enforcement officers to use in determining proficiency. FMCSA has been directed to create such a test. Adrienne Gildea, CVSA deputy executive director confirmed all drivers operating in the U.S. – regardless of where they’re domiciled – will need to meet the English proficiency threshold. And she noted the executive order has directed FMCSA to issue guidance “outlining revised inspection procedures necessary to ensure compliance with the requirements.”
“CVSA anticipates that the agency will issue guidance for commercial motor vehicle inspectors to ensure enforcement of the English language proficiency standard is applied consistently,” Gildea said.
The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) said it’s also working with regulators to gain more clarity and to ensure consistent enforcement.
“The English proficiency requirement to operate a commercial vehicle in the U.S. is nothing the CTA and its members have not been aware of for a very long time,” said CTA president Stephen Laskowski. “What will be critical moving forward is the development of consistent enforcement between commercial drivers and U.S. enforcement officials and the compliance path developed for industry, including application of the out-of-service criteria.”
Another potential consequence of increased English proficiency enforcement could be reduced capacity, if B-1 visa abuse is as rampant as ATA claims. There has been chatter online that the new OOS provision could significantly reduce the available truck driver workforce. However, Avery Vise, vice-president of trucking with industry forecaster FTR, said he wouldn’t anticipate a noticeable reduction in capacity.
“I’m skeptical of the ultimate impact – certainly in anything close to the immediate term,” he said. “While 100,000 violations were written up in 2014 – the final year before CVSA dropped the OOS violation – only about 5,000 of those were deemed to be OOS violations. Yes, the executive order appears to make all violations OOS violations, but ultimately it’s going to be a judgment call at the roadside. More important, even if it were that strictly enforced, drivers will not stop driving just because of the threat of a violation. It will take a long time for this to play out.”
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