Over 3,000 truck drivers removed from the road for English Language Proficiency violations since June
Thousands of commercial vehicle drivers have been ordered off the road for failure to meet federal English Language Proficiency (ELP) requirements, according to the latest federal data.
Since late June 2025, there have been a total of 3,020 out-of-service orders for ELP violations issued to commercial vehicle drivers, according to a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) database that aggregates roadside inspection violation data from across the U.S.
See below for ELP violations broken down by region:
- Eastern — 386
- Midwest — 615
- Southern — 878
- Western — 1,141
This marks a major jump in the number of ELP out-of-service violations recorded over the past month. In mid-August, the number of out-of-service ELP violations was listed at 1,212 in the database.
On June 25, 2025, non-compliance with existing federal regulations requiring ELP for commercial vehicle drivers was returned to an out-of-service violation following a White House Executive Order (EO) calling for increased enforcement of federal English-language requirements for truck drivers issued in the spring of 2025. The EO called for agencies to rescind a 2016 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) memo that directed law enforcement not to place truck drivers out-of-service for ELP violations.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy put the number of truck drivers taken out-of-service at approximately 1,500 as of the end of June 2025.
Since I took action to enforce language proficiency requirements for truckers, our state partners have put roughly 1,500 unqualified drivers out of service. That’s what I call results!
If you can’t read or speak our national language — ENGLISH — we won’t let your truck endanger… https://t.co/TKPcn60ic2
— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) July 30, 2025
Duffy has advocated strongly for strict enforcement of ELP rules for truck drivers since he took the reins at the Department of Transportation, particularly in the wake of a high profile triple fatality crash on the Florida Turnpike involving truck driver Harjinder Singh. The ability of Singh to speak English sufficiently to meet FMCSA requirements has been called into question since the crash.