More than 550 commercial driving schools in the United States that train truck drivers and bus drivers must close after investigators found they employed unqualified instructors, failed to adequately test students and had other safety issues, the federal Department of Transportation announced Wednesday.
The move represents the Department of Transportation’s latest effort to improve safety in the trucking industry. And unlike her previous actions last fall De-accreditation of up to 7,500 schools Which included Many operations are defunctThis latest step focuses on what were considered active schools with significant deficiencies identified by inspectors in 1,426 site visits.
The department has been aggressively going after states that handed out commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants who shouldn’t qualify for them since a fatal crash in August. Truck driver, who Transport Minister Sean Duffy says is not allowed in the US, made an illegal turn and caused an accident in Florida. Who killed three people. Other fatal crashes since then, including one in Indiana earlier this month that killed four, have heightened concerns.
Duffy said 448 schools failed to meet basic safety standards. Inspectors found deficiencies such as hiring unqualified teachers, failing to test students’ skills or teach them how to handle hazardous materials and using faulty driver education equipment. A further 109 schools removed themselves from the school register when they learned inspectors were planning to visit.
“American families must trust that our school bus and truck drivers are following every provision of the law, and that starts with receiving proper training before getting behind the wheel,” Duffy said.
The list of schools that officials want to deaccredit now is generally smaller, including a number of programs run by school districts. Five of the largest and most well-known schools represented by the National Commercial Vehicle Training Association were audited, but all passed.
Existing schools welcome new enforcement efforts to crack down on bad schools that don’t meet standards, said Jeffrey Burkhart, president of the National Group of Trucking Schools. He said that these audits represent the first time that regulators have implemented the driving school standards that were approved in 2022.
“There’s no reason to think they won’t keep moving forward, which is good. You know, good players don’t have a problem with that,” said Burkhart, who is also senior director of operations at Ancora, which provides CDL training at colleges, community colleges and businesses. Another 97 schools are currently under investigation for compliance issues.
Part of the problem in the trucking industry is that schools and trucking companies can essentially certify themselves when they apply to start up, observers note, and questionable operations may not be discovered until later when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration gets a chance to review them.
It was not immediately clear how many students were enrolled in these schools whose accreditations were revoked or how many graduated with questionable credentials. A Department of Transportation spokeswoman said officials may follow up on these graduates at a later date. Burkhart said it is hoped that most unqualified drivers will be weeded out before they hit the highway through skills tests states administer before handing out commercial licenses.
But there is some relief in the industry at the moment as there are more engines than are currently needed amid a 10% drop in shipments since 2022 due to economic uncertainty. Although many trucking companies are still struggling to find enough well-qualified drivers with clean records.
In addition to threatening to withhold federal funding from states that don’t clean up their commercial driver’s license programs, the Trump administration has focused on making sure truck drivers Meet English proficiency standards. California is the only state that Lose financing So far the federal government plans to withhold $160 million.