Almost Half of US Trucking Schools Could Be Decertified

Nearly 44% of the roughly 16,000 truck-driving schools in the United States could be forced to close following a federal review that found widespread issues with compliance, according to the Associated Press. The Transportation Department announced Monday that it intends to revoke the certification of nearly 3,000 schools unless they meet federal training requirements within 30 days. Those schools must notify their students that their certification is at risk. An additional 4,500 schools have been warned they could face similar action.

Losing certification would prevent these schools from issuing the federally required proof that a student has completed commercial-driver training, a consequence likely to drive students toward other programs.

In a related effort, the Department of Homeland Security is auditing immigrant-owned trucking firms in California to verify whether their drivers are authorized to work in the U.S. and eligible to hold commercial driver’s licenses. These enforcement steps are part of a broader push to ensure that commercial drivers are properly trained and legally permitted to operate. The effort accelerated after a crash in Florida, where a truck driver who Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says was not authorized to be in the country made an illegal U-turn, resulting in three deaths.

Secretary Duffy has threatened to withhold federal funds from states he says are failing to properly verify commercial-license holders. His proposed restrictions on which immigrants can obtain a commercial driver’s license were temporarily blocked by a court. On Monday, he warned that Minnesota could lose $30.4 million in federal funding if it does not address deficiencies in its licensing system and revoke licenses issued without proper immigration or work-permit checks.

How these actions might affect the ongoing national truck-driver shortage remains unclear. Andrew Poliakoff, executive director of the nation’s largest association of truck-driving schools, said many of the schools now facing decertification operated as questionable “CDL mills,” promising quick training in just a few days instead of the month-long programs typically required.

While some argue that lawful drivers and legitimate companies are being unfairly scrutinized because of immigration status, the Transportation Department maintains that the 3,000 schools facing action failed to meet training standards, kept poor records, or falsified training data.

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