Federal review finds 44% of US trucking schools don’t comply with government rules
FILE - A student driver gets on a truck as the instructor watches in Calif., Nov. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
Nearly 44% of the 16,000 truck driving schools in the U.S. may be forced to close after a review by the federal Transportation Department found they may not be complying with government requirements.
The Transportation Department said Monday that it plans to revoke the accreditation of nearly 3,000 schools unless they can comply with training requirements in the next 30 days. Another 4,000 schools are being warned they may face similar action.
This crackdown on trucking schools is the latest step in the government’s effort to ensure that truck drivers are qualified and eligible to hold a commercial license. This began after a truck driver that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. Duffy has threatened to pull federal funding from California and Pennsylvania over the issue, and he proposed significant new restrictions on which immigrants can get a commercial driver’s license but a court put those new rules on hold.
“We are reigning in illegal and reckless practices that let poorly trained drivers get behind the wheel of semi-trucks and school buses,” Duffy said.
The Transportation Department said the 3,000 schools it is taking action against failed to meet training standards and didn’t maintain accurate and complete records. The schools are also accused of falsifying or manipulating training data.
The list of schools being targeted wasn’t immediately released.