The Wyoming Highway Patrol announced its official support Tuesday in Casper for a state-level law that would decommission non-English proficient commercial truck drivers.
As a result, the legislative Transportation, Highways, and Military Affairs Committee directed its staff to draft a bill that would extend Wyoming Highway Patrol inspectors’ current enforcement of federal English proficiency regulations to all law enforcement agents in the state, as well as add additional state-level penalties for truckers who continue to drive after being pulled over for non-English proficiency.
When the Wyoming Highway Patrol spoke out on the issue at the committee’s Tuesday meeting, its top officials cited a recent crash in Florida on August 12 that killed three people after a driver made an illegal U-turn. According to the US Transportation Department, the driver, who held CDLs from Washington and California, failed an English proficiency exam following the crash.
WHP officials also discussed industry issues they’ve encountered, citing an April 28 presidential order tightening federal enforcement provisions.
“A lot of (trucking) companies out there, smaller companies, are taking risks and hiring drivers who aren’t qualified to drive commercial vehicles – and I think we’ve just seen that example in Florida,” Wyoming Highway Patrol Lt. Kyle McKay said during a back-and-forth with committee members.
At one point, Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs, asked WHP’s top administrator, Col. Tim Cameron, if the agency supports a state trucker English proficiency law.
“Yes,” Cameron replied. “It would improve traffic and public safety on our interstates… It would greatly benefit us.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, both the Wyoming Trucking Association and the Wyoming Towing and Recovery Professionals expressed their support for the bill draft. Cathy Cline, an independent trucking business operator from Sheridan County, testified that this issue is increasing her insurance rates as well as known safety hazards.
None of the meeting attendees objected to the bill’s formation.
Committee Co-Chair Rep. Landon Brown, R-Cheyenne, stated that he wants to gather as much feedback as possible before the committee’s third and final interim meeting on October 20.
“I support the motion,” Brown said. “But I want to be very thoughtful about this. It’s a hot topic, and I agree with everything we’ve discussed so far today. What I don’t want to do is have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that hamstrings or pigeonholes our troopers or insurance carriers.”
Kolb, Brown, and Co-Chair Sen. Stephan Pappas (R-Cheyenne) all emphasized the importance of input.
Brown requested committee input, Pappas requested industry input, and Kolb emphasized getting the bill draft out to the public ahead of the next meeting “so we could get as many comments as we can about this topic, so we can make the best bill draft possible.”
Sen. Jim Anderson, R-Casper, questioned the bill’s necessity, claiming that the testimony he heard indicated that “the federal law they were executing was fine” with the exception of some training issues.
Pappas responded, “I heard something different than you did, Senator Anderson.” “I see a real need for it.”
Some Background Here
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has long established a standard requiring English language proficiency in commercial vehicle drivers. That proficiency standard includes being able to converse with the general public, understand signs and signals, respond to official inquiries and keep entries and logs.
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance amended its North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria in 2005 to include violations of the English language proficiency requirement, according to the Legislative Service Office’s presentation to the committee on Tuesday.
For a decade, drivers who couldn’t communicate in English were out of work.
In 2015, the alliance voted to remove that violation from its out-of-service list, and President Barack Obama’s FMCSA did the same in 2016, removing the out-of-service requirement for English proficiency violations.
According to the LSO presentation, if a driver couldn’t read or write English, inspectors couldn’t cite him or her as long as he or she could communicate “sufficiently” with an inspector.
Then Came April
President Donald Trump on April 28 – after goading from U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyoming, and some in the trucking industry – issued an executive order repealing the 2016 guidance.
An associated policy memorandum established a two-part test for inspectors:
Interview the driver and determine whether he or she can respond “sufficiently” to official inquiries and directions in English without the use of flash cards or phone apps, as well as pass a highway signs test.
Arkansas and Oklahoma both passed state-level legislation authorizing other state agents, not just highway inspectors, to enforce this issue.
According to committee testimony, a third Tennessee law proposed this year died in the state senate.
Wyoming’s Answer
Cameron said the WHP started preparing for the president’s directive in advance.”Once we received word that the president was going to change the English language proficiency (rule), we began preparing to provide direction and a testing mechanism for our troopers,” said Cameron, noting that lawmakers had the handout with that guidance.
McKay said the rule change increased Wyoming’s enforcement measures.
In 2024, WHP “encountered” 379 violations of the English proficiency standard during its inspections, but inspectors were unable to remove those drivers from service, he said.
Between January 1 and June 25 of this year, the agency recorded 279 violations.
From June 25 to Tuesday, the agency marked 236 violations “where we put drivers out of service” for English non-proficiency, according to McKay. He clarified that the rule applies not only to commercial trucks, but also to “hot shots, pickup trucks (with) gooseneck trailers – anything over 26,000 pounds traveling across our interstates” as well as some smaller box trucks.
Pappas requested an estimate of how many people would be removed from service if other law enforcement agents, not just inspectors, could enforce the standard.
“If I was a betting man, I think it would triple,” McKay joked.
The Great Ball Of Yarn
Both Oklahoma and Arkansas passed “good bills,” said Cameron, but he pointed to what he called “more teeth” in Oklahoma’s bill – since it would add fines and/or imprisonment for truckers caught driving again after being placed out of service.
McKay furnished an example of such an incident.
He said he had a driver placed out of service for non-English proficiency on Aug. 13. That driver had flown into the country on a work visa Aug. 9.
A second driver flew in Aug. 10, also on a work visa, as did a third Aug. 11, “all working for the same company,” said McKay.
When the first was placed out of service while passing through the Cheyenne port of entry on Interstate 25, he said, the company switched drivers. The second driver was caught driving without English proficiency – and had been hired in “a short amount of time, no training, (briefing on) company policies,” added the lieutenant.
Often, McKay added under Kolb’s questioning, the bond amount for being placed out of service is $270, and a driver may pay that on scene. If the driver is in the country on a work visa and has a Mexican or Canadian commercial driver’s license, “there’s really no teeth to enforce the out-of-service or keep that driver from driving off,” he said.
These Companies
Rep. Cody Wylie, R-Rock Springs, asked whether authorities could do anything to the companies that aren’t vetting their drivers.
McKay stated that violations logged during inspections affect companies’ safety scores, but the problematic companies will simply change their names and start a new company, bringing back the same drivers and repeating the cycle.
He referred to it as “leap-frogging” in the industry.
Misty Zimmerman, Program Manager at Wyoming Department of Transportation’s Driver Services, emphasized that Wyoming requires CDL holders to take the entire test in English.
CDL testing regulations do not prohibit states from administering the knowledge skills test in multiple languages, the FMCSA told Cowboy State Daily in March.
“I don’t think any of these drivers (without English proficiency) are necessarily Wyoming CDL drivers,” Zimmerman said, implying that tightening Wyoming’s own licensing requirements would not solve the problem.
Wyoming reports violations of out-of-service orders to the states where truckers obtained their CDLs, she said, resulting in “federal disqualification.” However, in the network through which Wyoming reports those violations, the initial out-of-service order is “not a reportable offense.”
“That’s sort of the problem we have right now,” she said.
