Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into commercial truck driving schools in Texas for allegedly granting licenses to individuals who do not speak English and are unqualified to receive a Commercial Driver License (CDL). When drivers who cannot read basic road signs are put behind the wheel of large, load-bearing trucks, everyone who shares the road with them is put at extreme risk.

Paxton’s investigation has led to Civil Investigative Demands being sent to the following companies:

  • EP Texas Trucking School
  • Trucker Certified LLC
  • Fast Track CDL LLC
  • CDLCALL.COM LLC
  • Lindenwood Education System (Ancora)

There have been several major fatal crashes across the nation caused by non-English speaking illegals driving commercial semi trucks, most notably the accident caused by illegal alien Singh Sukhdeep. 

As of now, the investigation is still in an information-gathering phase, but AG Paxton believes that these schools are disregarding the federal requirement for all CDL holders to be able to  “read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public” and to “understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language”. 

The ways these schools could be avoiding this requirement include offering accelerated training and telling students that English proficiency is not required for the program. Texas DPS offers the CDL test in both English and Spanish, but state law also says that “the department shall test the applicant’s ability to understand highway traffic signs and signals that are written in English”. 

Offering the test in Spanish has become a potential loophole to that state law. Any driving school that uses the Spanish test as a way to work around the English requirements is harming public safety and in violation of the law. Texas DPS can solve the problem immediately by only offering the test in English, thereby ensuring that truck drivers are able to read and comprehend the language found on all American roadways.

Making this change would go a long way to protect Texans from foreign drivers who are wholly unqualified to be behind the wheel on our roads. Semi trucks require a wide array of skills and training to operate. The consequences of not being able to understand basic road signage are costing American lives.