CDL holders “should be the best drivers on the road,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently told a House committee.
That belief is why the DOT has taken steps to increase the barrier to entry for truck drivers. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a final rule barring unvetted individuals from obtaining a CDL. Additionally, the agency is working to eliminate CDL mills.
While U.S. CDL applicants are subject to strict checks for past violations, such as DUI, reckless driving or at-fault crashes, states have issued non-domiciled CDLs without conducting background checks.
“When we’ve had people come into the country recently, it’s very challenging for us to look at their records …” Duffy told the House Appropriations Committee on Thursday, May 21. “What is their driving record? And I think that’s creating some risk to the system, and if you’re going to church or you’re going to Walmart, you should be safe. These should be the best drivers on the road, not some of the ones that are killing our families.”
The DOT has estimated that the final rule will force nearly 200,000 non-domiciled CDL holders to exit the trucking industry.
Duffy said the DOT has already removed thousands of drivers who were deemed illegal or were unable to meet federal English-proficiency standards.
“We’ve worked with states to cancel 28,000 illegally issued licenses for unqualified foreign drivers, and we’re holding some states that aren’t cooperating accountable,” Duffy said. “We all need to follow the same rules. We’ve also knocked out more than 20,000 drivers out of service for failing to meet basic requirements like reading our road signs or being able to communicate with law enforcement.”
Duffy added that strengthening CDL standards shouldn’t be a partisan issue.
“There’s not a difference between a Democrat state and Republican state,” Duffy said. “All the states perform poorly, meaning they’re giving commercial driver’s licenses to people who maybe should not have been in the country at all …” LL
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