Trucking Leaders Warn of Lax Oversight in CDL Training
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Top leaders at the and the are expressing “serious concerns” to federal trucking regulators that entry-level driver training enforcement has not kept pace with the threat posed by unscrupulous entities graduating drivers without adequate preparation.
The heart of the problem is inadequate oversight of a 2022 federal regulation that requires driver training schools to “self-certify” on a Training Provider Registry that they use quality curriculum, employ experienced instructors and that they have the proper equipment, according to the two training trade organizations.
“According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s own published data, enforcement activity remains limited,” according to a letter the two trade organizations sent to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. “As of April 11, only four training providers are listed as removed from the TPR since 2023. And despite hundreds of complaints made by citizens and state agencies, only 25 entities are listed as having been issued a Notice of Proposed Removal.
“The 25 proposed removals date back to August 2024, and there has been no progress into full removals to date.”
The two associations said the numbers “fall far short of what is needed to meaningfully protect students and the motoring public.”
Martin Garsee (left), Danny Bradford say that as of April 11, only four training providers are listed as removed from the TPR since 2023.
“Meanwhile, state agency partners that eagerly report illicit trainers to FMCSA are left wondering why those illicit actors remain on the TPR,” the letter said.
The letter was signed by Danny Bradford, CVTA’s chairman, and Martin Garsee, executive director of the publicly funded driver schools group.
The concerns outlined in the trade organizations’ letter comes one day after American Trucking Associations sent a letter to Duffy with similar complaints.
“We believe FMCSA’s safety monitoring, auditing, and enforcement actions need to increase to ensure that unlicensed and unqualified entities are immediately removed from the TPR,” ATA President Chris Spear wrote. “In addition, we encourage FMCSA to begin better tracking the number of new CDLs issued on a state-by-state basis, including, but not limited to, the number of nondomiciled CDLs that are issued on an annual basis.”
“Very few people understand what’s happening behind the scenes with entry-level driver training,” said Steve Gold, CEO of 160 Driving Academy, which runs 152 schools in 44 states and will graduate about 30,000 students this year. “I’m intimately familiar with it because we’re the largest driver training school in the U.S.”
As a result of his personal interest in the issue, Gold said he’s meeting with FMCSA on April 16.
“When the ELDT rule went into effect, the intent was to make the roads safer, reduce the nefarious providers, make sure that everyone was properly trained in a commercial driver school,” Gold told Transport Topics. “But there is absolutely zero enforcement, zero oversight, for anybody who wants to open a commercial driving school. It is putting the American public at risk every day. This has been a disaster, but no one’s paying attention to this rule.”
Gold said it’s a felony for a school to falsely self-certify.
RELATED: Community colleges in four states enhance CDL training
The way it works, Gold said, is that when a driver graduates, his school will send a notification to federal regulators, who will in turn notify the state that he or she got their degree from a school that self-certified. Then the state may or may not then issue a commercial driver license to the driver.
Some states go deeper to check if the school is legit; others just issue the CDL, taking the word of federal regulators, according to Gold.
“We’ve talked to probably 25 states about this,” he said. “It’s a low issue on the totem pole. Nobody understands it, but it’s a really serious thing.”
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