Florida tragedy shows why Trump’s trucking license crackdown is needed
A horrific crash on a Florida highway left three people dead and several more injured. The driver accused of causing it – an illegal immigrant who crossed the border in 2018 – should never have been behind the wheel of a commercial truck in the first place.
This tragedy is not an isolated case. It highlights the deep flaws in how the federal government licenses and regulates commercial truck drivers, with lives on the line every single day.
That’s why President Donald Trump’s order to review every non-domiciled commercial driver’s license (CDL) issued in recent years is such an important step forward for highway safety. It represents a massive victory in the effort to prevent further senseless deaths caused by unqualified or improperly licensed truckers.
President Trump and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy understand the current licensing system is broken and needs urgent reform.
Not long ago, truckers were required to produce a birth certificate, speak English and confirm state residency before they could even qualify for a CDL. If a driver couldn’t speak English, they couldn’t even sit for the exam.
But today, the requirements have been watered down: a work permit or foreign visa is enough to qualify for a non-domiciled CDL, regardless of whether the driver can read highway signs in English.
The Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) was supposed to raise the bar in 2022 with its Entry Level Driver Training rules. Instead, those rules are riddled with loopholes. Employers, municipalities and online video providers masquerading as schools can “self-certify” commercial driver training – with virtually no oversight.
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As Teamsters President Sean O’Brien recently told the Senate Commerce Committee, a 16-year-old needs a licensed instructor to drive a sedan, but unqualified drivers are steering 80,000-pound trucks down America’s highways with little oversight. The result is rampant fraud, unqualified drivers and unsafe highways.
The statistics are sobering. Truck crashes killed 5,472 people in 2023, a 40% increase from 2014. That risk is only growing. Over 30,000 commercial driving schools are now “approved” by the FMCSA, but only about 2,100 are actually licensed by states.
Large employers often reject nearly half of driver applicants because of strict safety standards, but 90% of the industry is made up of small operators with fewer than 10 trucks – companies that often lack compliance departments and hire from questionable schools. These are the companies behind so many of the fatal headlines we see each week.
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Even the American Trucking Association has warned that the FMCSA’s rules are “insufficiently robust” to protect the public from fraudulent CDL mills. President Trump and Secretary Duffy’s study, coupled with their executive order requiring English proficiency for truck drivers, could finally weed out unqualified operators – if enforced.
Truck drivers are the backbone of our economy, moving 70% of all freight, keeping grocery shelves stocked, and ensuring medicine and fuel reach every community. They deserve strong standards, fair pay and a safe industry.
That’s why the trucking industry applauds President Trump and Secretary Duffy for taking action. But we cannot wait. With an average of 3,000 truck accidents and 100 fatalities every single week, America’s highways are in urgent need of reform.
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The Florida tragedy should be a wake-up call: lax licensing standards and weak enforcement are costing American lives. It’s time to shut down fraudulent training schools, enforce English proficiency requirements and restore integrity to the CDL system.
Only then will we protect American drivers, American truckers, and the families who share the road with them every day.
