Opinion: English as a Second Language

While state elections usually focus on issues like education, crime prevention and economic development, the recent race for governor in Illinois provided an unusual battlefield for some of the arcane issues of motor transportation law that rarely become the subject of public debate.

Although the heated race was, of course, decided on election day, some of the issues the Illinois contest raised about how truck drivers are licensed by various state agencies remain open.

As readers of Transport Topics will recall, Illinois was rocked last fall by a scandal involving allegations that commercial driver licenses had been issued to unqualified people in return for bribes to employees of the Illinois secretary of state’s agency, which issues CDLs. Those allegations arose out of a horrifying accident on a Wisconsin highway involving a Chicago family whose minivan rode over a mud flap bracket that fell off the back of a truck. The bracket pierced the minivan’s gas tank, causing it to burst into flame. Six children were killed and their parents were severely injured.

In yet unproven allegations, the family’s attorney has charged that the driver of the truck that dropped the bracket was improperly licensed in Illinois because of, among other things, his inability to speak English. According to the plaintiffs’ attorney, while other drivers on the road had attempted to warn the truck driver that his mudflap bracket was about to dislodge, the warnings were futile because the driver did not understand what was being said to him.

The charges took on political importance because Illinois’ then-secretary of state, George Ryan, was one of the candidates running for governor. Ryan won in November, but the contest was marked by his opponent’s charges that the bribes allegedly paid to license examiners had found their way into the Ryan campaign coffers. In a highly charged television advertisement, the opponent seemed to place the blame for the deaths of the six children squarely at the feet of the secretary of state himself. What followed was a heated exchange between the candidates as to whether the truck driver was properly licensed regardless of whether he could speak English.

The U.S. Department of Transportation got directly involved in the campaign, issuing a rule interpretation, which stated that while a motor carrier is obligated to use only drivers who are conversant in English, state licensing authorities are under no obligation to confirm that an applicant is fluent in English before issuing a CDL.

This surprising result emerges from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations regarding driver qualification and application procedures. FMCSR Part 391.11 states that a motor carrier cannot place a person behind the wheel of one of its trucks unless the person is qualified to drive it. Among the qualifications, the regulations say the person must be able to read and speak the English language sufficiently to understand traffic signs, respond to officials, converse with the public and make entries on reports and records.

But a CDL is no guarantee that the driver can meet the language requirements. Although the applicant must certify that he or she meets the qualification requirements, there is no federal obligation for the state to actually test the fluency of the applicant’s English skills. Indeed, several states offer the test in Spanish. The Illinois secretary of state’s Web site, in fact, offers for sale a CDL study guide in Spanish and the Rules of the Road publication in both Spanish and Polish.

Every safety and hiring manager must be aware of this gap. The state that issued the driver applicant’s CDL is likely looking to the motor carrier to make the final determination whether that person speaks enough English to drive a truck.

For the full story, see the March 22 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.