WASHINGTON — All truckers and bus drivers must now take their commercial driver’s license tests in English, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Friday.
The mandate aims to ensure drivers can read road signs and communicate with law enforcement, addressing a longstanding safety gap. While federal law already requires English proficiency for commercial drivers, many states have allowed testing in other languages. California alone offered tests in 20 languages.
The enforcement push follows several fatal crashes, including an August incident in Florida where a truck driver allegedly in the U.S. illegally made an illegal U-turn and killed three people. Earlier this month, four members of an Amish community died in an Indiana crash involving a driver from a fraudulent trucking operation.
Locally, in the Ohio Valley, drivers who reportedly could not read or speak English have jackknifed semis, blocked traffic, or followed GPS directions onto roads not suitable for large vehicles. One such incident occurred in Belmont County, Ohio, last summer. A semi-truck, driven by a person who reportedly could not read or speak English and was unable to read a ‘No Turn’ warning sign, jackknifed on Crescent Road outside St. Clairsville in August 2025.
Recent federal inspections of over 8,000 drivers disqualified nearly 500 for inadequate English skills. California removed more than 600 drivers from highways after initially resisting the enforcement.
The Transportation Department also ordered 557 driving schools to close for failing to meet basic safety standards. Officials are expanding efforts to crack down on fraudulent trucking companies that exploit weak registration requirements to operate under multiple names after violations.
Companies currently only need to pay $300 and show insurance proof to register, with audits often delayed a year or more. This has enabled so-called “chameleon carriers” to repeatedly change names and avoid enforcement after crashes.
