Thousands of U.S. trucking schools could lose accreditation : NPR

WASHINGTON – Department of Transportation threatening to close thousands of truck driving schools as part of the Trump administration's escalating crackdown on the US auto industry.

The Department of Transportation announced Monday that it plans to revoke the accreditation of nearly 3,000 trucking schools if they fail to meet federal requirements within 30 days, and warned that another 4,000 schools could face similar action.

“We have illegal and reckless practices that allow poorly trained drivers to get behind the wheel of semi-trailers and school buses,” Transport Minister Sean Duffy said in a statement.

The names of the targeted schools were not immediately released. Together, they represent more than 40 percent of the nation's 16,000 authorized educational institutions, according to DOT. The department accuses them of falsifying or manipulating training data, failing to meet required curriculum standards and instructor qualifications, and failing to maintain or share accurate records.

The crackdown on trucking schools is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to ensure drivers are qualified and eligible to obtain a commercial driver's license, or CDL.

The Department of Transportation also proposed significant new restrictions on immigrants getting CDLs, but a federal appeals court set these rules aside last month. This call for stricter regulations coincides with a series of deadly crashes involving foreign-born truckers, including fatal crash in florida three people died in August.

Secretary Duffy argues the restrictions are urgently needed because there are too many foreign-born truckers who don't know the rules of the road and speak little English.

But the administration's critics say there is no data to back up that claim, despite several high-profile disasters that have drawn significant attention from conservative media. They say the push for stricter regulations is tantamount to immigration crackdown under a different name.

All of this puts immigrant truckers in a difficult position, especially those who have been in the business for a while.

“Increased safety measures are long overdue,” said Pawan Singh, owner of a small trucking company in Northern Virginia.

In an interview with NPR last month, Singh acknowledged that many schools graduate drivers without teaching them how to safely operate 18-wheelers, although he said the problem is not limited to immigrant drivers who have recently completed training. “An untrained driver is dangerous, whether he is born here or born abroad.”