As part of President Trump’s April 28 Executive Order on “Commonsense Rules and the Road for America’s Truck Drivers,” the Department of Transportation was directed to review state issuance of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses to identify any irregularities and ensure American drivers are properly licensed and qualified. On June 27, in response to the EO, DOT Secretary Sean Duffy announced that the DOT is launching a nationwide audit of state practices for issuing non-domiciled CDLs to review the potential for unqualified individuals obtaining licenses and posing a hazard on our roads. Is it time for State Licensing Agencies to step up to help enforce licensing rules?

Non-domiciled CDLs are those issued by a state to a person who is not a resident of that state and typically apply to individuals from foreign countries, excluding Mexico and Canada, or to those whose state of domicile is prohibited from issuing a CDL. While there is no official count of how many non-domiciled CDLs exist in the United States, the media has been doing its own investigation with the states and has shared their results, noting the states have issued more than 60,000 non-domiciled CDLs, with the numbers increasing more recently both in absolute numbers as well as in their percentage of total CDLs issued.

In addition, many in the industry have raised concerns about illegal cabotage and fraudulent CDLs being granted not only by states but also by other countries, such as Mexico. As an example, Florida recently uncovered a fraudulent license scheme, with eight individuals arrested and two DMV employees compromised for offering drivers’ licenses to individuals without legal status in exchange for cash. These issues, coupled with criminal activities such as human and drug smuggling, indicate that more needs to be done to strengthen the integrity of our CDL process.

One positive example is the Texas Hold’Em Initiative—a program that has been in place since 2008 as a collaboration between the Texas Department of Motor Safety (DPS) and US Border Patrol— which has revoked more than 1,000 CDLs as a result of federal convictions of smuggling humans or drugs into the US from Mexico.

Finally, during the recent English Language Proficiency debate, the issue of whether state driver’s licensing agencies’ (SDLAs) should take a more prominent role in evaluating a driver’s English proficiency has been brought front and center.

These all serve as examples of ineffective licensing controls that may be impacting trucking and are examples of where state licensing agencies could step up to help enforce licensing rules and improve safety. After all, driving a commercial motor vehicle is a privilege and not a right.

STC has written about gaps and challenges with the licensing, violation adjudication, and driver history record posting processes at the state and local levels – and of their negative impacts on safety. The issues identified above represent additional significant challenges to the integrity of the licensing processes at the state level. At the end of the day, there are gaps in government oversight that are leading to potentially problematic actors being authorized to drive on our roadways, and we need to do better.

We are hopeful that the FMCSA investigation results will help to document and substantiate the scope and impacts of these gaps and result in an action plan in collaboration with the SDLAs and the courts to address them. Right now, unfortunately, law enforcement bears the brunt of the efforts to identify and take action against these problem drivers. The FMCSA, SDLAs and the courts are important partners in this effort and need to take more responsibility and accountability.