The Department of Justice has shut down 270 CDL schools

 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. New York Post.

The Department of Justice has shut down 270 CDL schools for graduating truck drivers who could not speak English or offering subpar training facilities. New York Post. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that illegal immigrants and folks that can't speak English should drive big rig trucks. They shut down 110 schools that had graduated 5,000 drivers who could not speak English at all, which is a dangerous thing if they cannot understand road signs. 160 more were shut down for inadequate training facility, many of which only consisted of a single truck or a small parking lot. 239 people have died in crashes caused by CDL holders that did not speak English with California being the most common state to issue the CDL's. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin was a former truck driver and he said that standards had massively dropped since he got his CDL. 

My Comment:

This is one of the lesser known changes that have been put into place since President Trump was elected and I have to say it's a welcome one. I work in an industry where I deal with CDL holders every day and it's unquestionable that the standards for truck drivers dropped like a rock right around the time that the Biden administration took over. 

So often before Trump's 2nd term, I was using my phone to translate to drivers that didn't speak English well or at all, and sometimes even then, it was impossible to communicate with them. Not to mention the drivers that could barely back their trailer into a spot or slide their tandems. Some of these issues were forgivable during 2020 during the bad days of the pandemic when we had a genuine lack of drivers, but there was no excuse for the lower standards continuing in 2021 and beyond. 

The change after Trump was sworn in was dramatic to say the least. I haven't had to use my translate app on my phone for a truck driver for more than a year now. When I see a truck driver now, I can usually assume that the person is someone who can actually speak to me and I am pretty sure is allowed to be in the country. That's a huge positive for me and it's a good thing for everyone else. 

Why? Well, you need to be able to read English to drive a truck. You need to know what road signs say in order to drive and navigate safely. Imagine driving and not recognizing a road closed sign or what a stop sign is? But there were thousands of drivers on our roads doing exactly that, and it led to quite a few deaths, all of which were preventable. 

These schools were facilitating all that. They were scamming America and they were run by the same people that were getting the fake CDL's. These were license mills and they were giving their buddies CDL's so they could get jobs and I am sure they were taking kickbacks as well. The fact that the drivers were untrained and unsuited for American roads didn't bother them a bit. Closing them down is a major victory and more than justifies my vote for Donald Trump.