Fact-Checked: Why Trust Rittgers Rittgers & Nakajima America’s federal trucking regulators are sounding a lot like trucking negligence lawyers these days. In announcing new regulations cracking down on illegal training centers for commercial truck drivers, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy stated that the agency is “reigning in illegal and reckless practices that let poorly trained drivers get behind the wheel of semi-trucks and school buses.” The Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration added that ““[i]f you are unwilling to follow the rules, you have no place training America’s commercial drivers. We will not tolerate negligence.” Ibid.
A large component of the current training problems comes in the form of the issuance of commercial drivers’ licenses to those who cannot meet the regulation regarding English fluency. As the Secretary further stated “Americans are a lot safer on roads alongside truckers who can understand and interpret our traffic signs. This common-sense change ensures the penalty for failure to comply is more than a slap on the wrist.”
Federal Regulations Regarding Language Requirements for Truckers
The relevant regulation in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (“FMCSR”) states as follows: “A person shall not drive a commercial motor vehicle unless he is qualified to drive a commercial motor vehicle…a person is qualified to drive a motor vehicle if he/she…[c]an read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.” 49 C.F.R. 391.11
This is an issue we have come across many times. It is not at all unusual in depositions for us to discover that a truck driver that caused a serious crash had limited English fluency (at best). This immediately raises questions as to how the person passed a driver’s test—-much less a commercial driver’s test. Below is a real example from one of our cases in which a (somehow) licensed truck driver caused a crash with serious injuries. The deposition was taken by Matt Nakajima:
Q…When — when you came to the US, could you read and write in English?
A. No. No.
Q. Okay. As we sit here today, can you read and write in English?
A. No. Just, just listen and speak.
Q. Okay. So you can speak in English, but you can’t read or write in English; is that fair?
A. Yeah. But I — I don’t write in, but I listen — listening and people used to and speak this way.
Q. Okay. So you can understand English because you’ve been communicating with me; right?
A. Yeah. Yeah.
Q. And you can speak English, like you’ve been doing; correct?
A. Yeah.
Q. But when it comes to, to writing in English, that’s something that you’re not very good at; is that fair?
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay. And what about reading English? Is that something that you’re not very good at?
A. I, I — I don’t, like, no read too much, but some some. Little little.
Q. Okay. You can read a little bit in English, but would you say that you’re not very good at it?
A. Not good.
How Trucking Company Negligence Leads to Catastrophic Crashes
In many ways these drivers are victims of a sort themselves of shady training centers and/or trucking companies, as was later revealed in the same deposition:
Q. All right. So you signed your name to this application —
A. Yes.
Q. — is that correct? But you didn’t complete this application?
A. No. Yes, that’s —
Q. Someone else — someone did it for you?
A. Yes.
Q. Who did it for you?
A. The, the worker over there. They work [company name].
Q. So someone at [company name] completed this application for you?
A. Yes.
…
Q. Okay. So you were not — whoever wrote this down, all this information, you were not standing next to them, telling them what to write down; correct?
A. Yeah. Yes. Correct.
Q. Okay.
A. They say it’s okay, you sign it here, here. Yes.
Q. Okay. They just completed it without your knowledge and then told you to sign —
A. Yes.
Q. — and you did what you were told?
A. Yes.
…
Q. [Driver Name], did anybody at [company name] ever give you the Commercial Driver’s Manual for the State of New York before they put you behind the wheel of a tractor trailer?
A. No.
Q. Did they ever give you a Commercial Driver’s Manual for the State of New Jersey?
A. No.
Q. Okay. Did anybody ever tell you that you needed to know the rules in this book in order to work for [company name]?
A. No.
Contact Our Experienced Truck Accident Lawyers
This kind of illegal (and shocking) conduct is often the first in a series of steps leading to a catastrophic crash. As shown above, often only the lawyers willing to take depositions, litigate the case and otherwise get their hands dirty can get truth and justice for their clients. We are glad that the federal government is stepping up to the plate on some of these issues, but for most people only an experienced trucking lawyer can get them the compensation that they are entitled to when injured by a large truck.