Drivers filmed with no English skills, understanding of road signs during Florida trooper crackdown

Florida Highway Patrol was filmed conducting roadside inspections during a recent crackdown in Florida, revealing truck drivers without the ability to understand English or the meaning of road signs.  

The troopers and FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs were filmed by Fox News during the inspections. In the video, one truck driver was found to have an inability to speak English, and no understanding of some road signs. The driver can be seen responding simply “no” to multiple questions about the meaning of some road signs, and responds to the trooper only in Spanish. 

“I try to concentrate on the [signs] they have to read,” said FHP master trooper Craig Lents. “If you are going down the road at 70 miles per hour, and you see that sign, you only see it for a split second.”

“It’s been the law for a long period of time,” said Derek Barrs, Federal Motor Carrier Safety administrator. “It’s a safety issue. … If there was a crash or something like that, I would want to make sure that driver would know how to respond — slow down for upcoming traffic or a crash that has happened up ahead.”

You can watch video of the inspections below. The filmed encounter with the truck driver starts at minute 1:10 in the first video.