Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Transportation is threatening to withhold funding from three states if they do not enforce an English language proficiency standards for commercial drivers, Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday.
- California, New Mexico and Washington have 30 days to enforce regulation regarding English proficiency for drivers, officials said. The three states collectively have tens of millions of dollars in federal funding that could be at risk, Duffy said, and the DOT wants them to carry out rules regarding English proficiency for drivers.
- “We don't want to take away money from states, but we will take money away, and we'll take additional steps that get progressively more difficult for these states,” Duffy said, declining to share what those additional steps would entail.
Dive Insight:
States can and must enforce English language proficiency provisions, federal officials said, adding that most of the DOT partners performing the language assessments are state and local partners.
Drivers can face out-of-service orders if found to violate the standard, but assessments are not always done — only if there’s a challenge in communication, according to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Chief Counsel Jesse Elison.
Duffy's warnings to the aforementioned states come after the DOT investigated a deadly crash involving a tractor-trailer. The DOT said its review revealed three states violated federal standards.
The Aug. 12 crash between a tractor-trailer and a minivan on Florida’s Turnpike left three people dead, according to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
In the crash, the 18-wheeler made an illegal U-turn in an “Official Use Only” access point, crashing into a passenger vehicle, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Both California and Washington issued the truck driver a CDL, and New Mexico State Police showed no evidence that law enforcement administered an English language proficiency assessment when issuing him a speeding ticket, the DOT noted in preliminary results of its review of the case.
But the truck driver couldn’t speak English and couldn’t understand road signs when tested in Florida, Duffy said.
“If states had followed the rules, this driver would never have been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us,” Duffy said previously in a news release.
