SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — About six months ago, President Trump issued an executive order revisiting an existing law mandating truck drivers speak and understand enough English to read road signs and interact with law enforcement.
States such as California, Washington and New Mexico have, for the most part, ignored the order.
Now, the Department of Transportation is threatening those states and others with pulling millions of dollars in federal funding if they don’t enforce the English-language proficiency requirements with truck drivers.
The California Highway Patrol is already on record saying it will not be “putting drivers out-of-service for not speaking English despite new federal guidance on the rule.”
Drivers like Paramveep Singh, say they have noticed California and other states on the West Coast are much more forgiving when it comes to truckers not having enough English skills while on the road.
Border Report spoke with Singh at a truck stop near the Otay Mesa Port of Entry southeast of downtown San Diego.
Earlier in the day, he had made a delivery to a cruise ship tied up at San Diego Harbor.
According to Singh and others, many drivers avoid Arkansas and Texas as much as possible.
“Those states are tougher compared to California, and people are running local, they’re scared of those routes you know, they don’t want to be hauled to court and deal with all that stuff.”
Singh, who is based in Fresno, California, believes drivers should try to learn English.
“You have to communicate, people should know English and communicate with each other, you know, it’s the international language.”
The DOT is insisting all states comply with the mandate to avoid accidents and fatalities on the road.
In August, an undocumented migrant and driver of a commercial truck, caused an accident that killed three people in Florida, according to police.
An investigation revealed the non-English speaking driver failed to read a sign prohibiting U-turns moments before attempting such a turn causing his truck to jackknife and collide with a minivan that was carrying the three victims.
“States don’t get to pick and choose which federal safety rules to follow,” said Sean Duffy, DOT Secretary. “As we saw with the horrific Florida crash that killed three, when states fail to enforce the law, they put the driving public in danger.”
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