WASHINGTON
All truck and bus drivers must now take their commercial driver’s license tests in English, the Trump administration announced Friday, expanding an aggressive campaign to improve road safety and weed out unqualified drivers.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the new requirement ensures drivers can read road signs and communicate with law enforcement. While federal rules have long required English proficiency, many states have allowed testing in other languages.
California alone offered CDL tests in 20 languages.
That’s now over.
Duffy said some states outsourced testing to private companies that failed to enforce federal standards, allowing drivers to bypass both English and driving requirements.
The crackdown comes just days after the Transportation Department ordered 557 driving schools to close for safety violations. It also follows a series of fatal crashes involving unqualified drivers.
In August, a truck driver who Duffy said was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn in Florida, killing three people. Earlier this month, a crash in Indiana killed four members of an Amish community.
“States have not been enforcing the standards,” Duffy said. “That ends now.”
By James Kisoo
