Federal review finds 44% of trucking schools don't comply with government rules

Nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving schools in the U.S. may be forced to close after a review by the federal Transportation Department found they may not be complying with government requirements.

The Transportation Department said Monday that it plans to revoke the certification of nearly 3,000 schools unless they can comply with training requirements in the next 30 days. The targeted schools must notify students that their certification is in jeopardy. 

Separately, the Department of Homeland Security is auditing trucking firms in California owned by immigrants to verify the status of their drivers and whether they are qualified to hold a commercial driver’s license.

This crackdown is the latest step in the government’s effort to ensure that truck drivers are qualified and eligible to hold a commercial license. This began after a truck driver that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people.

The executive director of the largest association of trucking schools, Andrew Poliakoff, said many of the schools being decertified were questionable “CDL mills” that would advertise being able to train drivers in just a few days.

In established training schools, students normally spend at least a month and get lessons both behind the wheel and in the classroom.

He said those questionable schools were really just “fleecing people out of money” without teaching them the skills they need to get hired or pass the test.

The Transportation Department said the 3,000 schools it is taking action against failed to meet training standards and didn’t maintain accurate and complete records. The schools are also accused of falsifying or manipulating training data.

Trucking industry groups have praised the effort to tighten up licensing standards and ensure that drivers can meet basic English proficiency requirements the Trump administration began enforcing this summer.

Todd Spencer, President of the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the industry has long warned about the potential for problems if trucking schools are allowed to certify themselves.

“When training standards are weak, or in some instances totally non-existent, drivers are unprepared, and everyone on the road pays the price,” Spencer said.

California moved to revoke 17,000 commercial driver’s licenses after federal officials raised concerns that they had been issued improperly to immigrants or allowed to remain valid long after a driver’s work permit expired.



(AP Photo Jae C. Hong)