As you surely know, a fatal truck crash in Florida on Aug. 12 has crystalized federal officials’ focus on foreign drivers as a critical truck safety problem. As humans, we at FTR obviously care as much about highway safety as anyone, but FTR as an organization does not focus on safety.
What we do track, analyze, and mull over are the effects of safety regulation and enforcement on the truck freight market, primarily the availability and productivity of drivers. It is in this context that we have written about hours-of-service (HOS) regulations, the electronic logging device mandate, the drug and alcohol clearinghouse, speed limiters, and so on.
In the August report, we argued that if long-term ELP enforcement matched the first month, it was unlikely to make much difference in capacity. The run rate put the number of drivers placed out of service (OOS) at under 18,000 a year – a drop in the bucket compared to the overall population.
The missing X factor in late July was some sort of rallying point – an event or situation that would turn a series of routine enforcement measures into a cause célèbre. The Aug. 12 crash that took three lives and involved an immigrant truck driver surely is the most notorious truck crash since the 2014 crash that severely injured comedian Tracy Morgan.
The Florida crash happened to fit the bill, but it was just a matter of time anyway. President Trump’s April 28 executive order regarding ELP and non- domiciled commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) had already set the enforcement agenda for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). The hoopla over the August 12 crash wasn’t the sudden recognition of a problem. It was confirmation bias.
The salient points about the crash, according to an Aug. 19 Department of Transportation (DOT) press release, are that the truck driver held a non-domiciled CDL and failed an English language proficiency (ELP) assessment. DOT singled out Washington, California, and New Mexico for possible failings regarding ELP and both regular and non-domiciled CDLs involving that driver. A few days later, DOT threatened to withhold federal motor carrier safety funds from those three states unless they adopted and enforced ELP failures as OOS violations within 30 days.
Media reports have captured plenty of “he said/she said” comments among the parties, but what matters are the actions of government officials. Therefore, we won’t delve into the controversies, although we note that other states clearly had not been enforcing ELP as an OOS violation, either.
For example, just one driver in Florida had been placed OOS for an ELP violation before Aug. 22, and that was on June 25. Perhaps due to the sudden and intense scrutiny, especially in that state, Florida inspectors placed a driver OOS on Aug. 22 and then two more on Aug. 23.
DOT was not the only federal department to address foreign drivers. On Aug. 21, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced by social media that the U.S. was pausing all worker visas for commercial truck drivers, a move that would address immigrant drivers, though it would not affect Mexican or Canadian drivers crossing the border routinely.
The American Trucking Associations (ATA) welcomed the move regarding visas, adding that non-domiciled CDLs also needed scrutiny, including enforcement of entry-level driver training standards.
DOT in June had announced a nationwide audit into state practices in issuing such CDLs.
Florida state officials are getting into the act, too. While Florida highway safety officials apparently had not been enforcing ELP until very recently, the state’s agriculture department said law enforcement officials would assess drivers’ English proficiency while conducting agricultural inspections of commercial trucks at interdiction stations.
These and other steps that presumably will flow from the intense focus on the Florida crash and, probably, others that might occur in the months ahead could make a difference in how pressure on foreign drivers affects the truck freight market.
For example, as we pointed out last month, FMCSA’s May 20 guidance on ELP stated that drivers operating in the Mexican border commercial zones were not to be placed OOS. Rescinding that guidance would create major problems at the border, but it no longer seems inconceivable.
The Latest On ELP Enforcement
Our review of inspection and violation data from the first 30 days of ELP being treated as an OOS violation showed that about 73% of violations did not result in the driver being placed OOS because those inspections occurred in the commercial zones.
Data through Aug. 25 shows no change in this pattern. Of the 11,88 total violations, 3,160, or close to 27%, resulted in the driver being OOS.
Even though about 89% of violations issued by Texas inspectors occurred in the border zones and were not OOS, the state still led the nation in OOS violations. Wyoming and Tennessee were still second and third. Arizona was fourth even though nearly 53% of its violations were in the border zone.
At the other end of the spectrum, three states – Hawaii, New Hampshire, and New Mexico – have yet to issue any OOS violations. Washington and Alaska have issued just two, and California, Maryland, and Minnesota have cited just one.
The 3,160 OOS violations as of August 25 reflect 2,942 unique truck vehicle identification numbers (VINs), which is our way of approximating unique drivers. Just over 200 drivers received multiple OOS violations during this period.
Based on two months of data, we still expect that fewer than 18,000 unique drivers will be placed OOS in the first year of strict enforcement. However, apparent delays in some states starting enforcement and the pressure DOT is bringing to bear on others means that a higher figure certainly is reasonable.
Still, we aren’t talking about orders of magnitude. The loss of drivers sidelined due solely to roadside violations is not shaping up to be a market mover.
Who Are These Drivers Anyway?
You might recall from last month’s analysis that we singled out Suplicium Transport LLC as the carrier receiving the most OOS violations. As of July 24, Suplicium – a one-truck, one-driver operation according to FMCSA registration data – had drawn 27 OOS violations in 30 days. It had a pending insurance cancellation but was still in business.
As of Aug. 25, Suplicium was still No. 1 in ELP OOS violations at 55 – more than double a 329-truck operation that ranked second. In any case, Suplicium apparently has reached the end of the line. Its insurance was cancelled as of Aug. 27, and the carrier is listed on an FMCSA website as not authorized as a for-hire carrier of property.
It’s worth noting, though, that we aren’t talking about big rigs here. Of the 50 unique VINs involved in Suplicium’s 55 OOS violations, only one was a Class 8 truck. The rest were Class 3 pickups, mostly Ford F-350s and Ram 3500s.
The carriers ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in OOS violations were tractor-trailer operations operating hundreds of trucks. However, numerous others among the top repeat offenders – perhaps not coincidentally – resembled Suplicium.
Almost all the drivers placed OOS while working for those carriers – Bernardyniv LLC, Kirzate Inc., Auto Haul Express LLC, and Parmalex LLC, among others – were operating heavy-duty pickups, mostly F-350s and Ram 3500s. Kirzate, Auto Haul Express, and Parmalex are now out of business; Bernardyniv LLC has a pending insurance cancellation.
The key point is that almost all the drivers placed OOS at those carriers did not hold CDLs or, at least, weren’t required to. Culling them from the commercial driver population likely will not affect the supply of drivers involved in freight transportation.
Sure, these are niche medium-duty driveaway operations and might not resemble the majority of drivers that draw OOS violations for inadequate English skills. However, with the number of drivers likely to be removed due to ELP enforcement already underwhelming, these nuances matter.
Scrutiny Over Immigrant CDLs
As noted earlier, DOT is or will be auditing states’ practices regarding non-domiciled CDLs in response to Trump’s executive order. Tightening standards on issuing non-domiciled CDLs is another tactic that could reduce the driver population.
Hard data on the scope of non-domiciled CDLs appears hard to come by. Trucking media outlet Overdrive recently published an analysis of its attempt to quantify the scope. It was not able to pinpoint the number of active non-domiciled CDLs due to states that either did not keep records of such CDLs or declined to disclose their numbers.
Ultimately, Overdrive concluded that there were at least 60,000 active non-domiciled CDLs, but it stressed that this estimate did not include several large states – California, Georgia, New Jersey, New York and Virginia, among others – that confirmed that they issue non-domiciled CDLs but did not provide any numbers.
The most extreme outcome from DOT’s audit of states’ practices regarding non-domiciled CDLs would be some action to cancel both new and existing non-domiciled CDLs. If that were to happen, we could be talking about a serious hit to capacity.
Given the ratcheting up of pressure on ELP, work visas, and non-domiciled CDLs, the prospects for an intense focus on foreign drivers to affect capacity certainly have risen. Putting aside enforcement, shippers, brokers, and carriers presumably are even more attuned to the issue today than they were a month ago. Moreover, foreign drivers themselves might be more likely to “self deport.”
Even if all these factors hit capacity, though, don’t count on the market tightening much until freight volume recovers. Consider that the drug and alcohol clearinghouse has – at least in theory – removed about 190,000 CDL drivers from the market since January 2020. That’s roughly 35,000 a year.
Perhaps doubling that would make a difference, but carriers would still need rising volume as a catalyst.
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