Four people burned alive in a Colorado pileup because a trucker couldn't read a runaway ramp sign.
Now Sean Duffy is making sure that never happens again – and making certain no future Democrat can quietly undo it.
Obama gutted the English rule in 2016 and Duffy just made that impossible for any president to repeat.
Obama's Loophole Opened the Floodgates
Federal law has required commercial truckers to read and speak English since 1937.
That rule existed for one reason: 80,000-pound rigs moving at highway speed require drivers who can read a "Steep Grade" sign, respond to a cop, and understand a "Do Not Enter" warning.
Then Barack Obama happened.
In 2016, his FMCSA issued a memo telling inspectors to stop pulling non-English-speaking drivers off the road for proficiency violations.
Inspectors were told they could hand a non-compliant trucker a citation – and let him keep driving.
Worse, the memo spelled out that if a driver couldn't read, write, or speak English but could get by with a smartphone app or cue cards, that was acceptable.
https://twitter.com/Trumpusa1A1/status/2086588054412927217?s=20
Cue cards.
For a man driving an 18-wheeler through your neighborhood at 65 miles per hour.
The result was predictable: states like California began handing CDLs to tens of thousands of non-English-speaking immigrants, and enforcement fell apart.
FMCSA later found that California alone improperly issued more than 25% of CDLs granted to noncitizens.
26,000 Unqualified Drivers Already Pulled Off the Road
Trump reversed it in April 2025 – an executive order titled "Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America's Truck Drivers" directed FMCSA to put non-compliant drivers out of service immediately.
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance followed in June 2025, adding English proficiency to its official out-of-service criteria.
California refused to enforce it.
Duffy withheld $40 million in federal highway funding from the state in October 2025 until California fell in line – which it did, beginning enforcement in January 2026.
Since then, more than 26,000 unqualified drivers have been pulled off American roads.
https://twitter.com/OwenGregorian/status/2086795074671681744?s=20
But an executive order is only as permanent as the next president.
Duffy announced the next step on Friday – a proposed rule that codifies English proficiency requirements directly into the Code of Federal Regulations, where it takes an act of Congress to undo them.
No future Democrat can erase it with a memo.
What the Rule Actually Does
The proposed regulation does three things that no executive order could guarantee.
First, it creates a uniform national standard – every state applies the same out-of-service requirement, ending the patchwork where California played games while Wyoming held the line.
Second, it closes the border loophole: any commercial driver crossing from Mexico who cannot read or speak English gets placed out of service before he exits the border zone.
Third, it establishes English-only CDL testing – no more multilingual workarounds at the state level.
"When a driver can't read a 'Steep Grade,' 'Runaway Truck Ramp,' or 'Do Not Enter' sign, people die," FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said in the announcement.
He's not exaggerating.
This Is What Happens When You Let the Rule Slide
The DOT pointed to two crashes in its rulemaking to show what Obama's loophole cost Americans.
In April 2019, Rogel Aguilera-Mederos – a Cuban-born trucker – was hauling lumber on I-70 near Denver when his brakes failed and he hit stopped traffic at 85 miles per hour.
Four people burned to death trapped in their vehicles.
Twenty-eight cars destroyed.
The trucking company that employed him had prior federal violations for keeping drivers who didn't meet English proficiency standards on the road.
https://twitter.com/USDOTRapid/status/2086811937329893549?s=20
Democrats and celebrities – including Kim Kardashian – campaigned to cut his 110-year sentence.
Colorado Governor Jared Polis obliged, reducing it to 10 years.
The victims' families had no such advocate.
In January 2026, a West Virginia bridge crash involving Sukhjinder Singh raised the same questions about whether language barriers played a role – another crash, another investigation, another American family left to wonder if someone who couldn't read English should have been behind the wheel.
The pattern isn't a coincidence.
It's what happens when you tell inspectors to accept cue cards and move on.
Duffy is ending that permanently – and 26,000 drivers already off the road are just the beginning.
Sources:
- Sean Duffy, "Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Moves to Codify English Proficiency Requirements for Truckers on U.S. Roads," FMCSA.dot.gov, August 7, 2026.
- "DOT Sec. Sean Duffy Makes English a Permanent Requirement for Nation's Migrant Truckers," Breitbart, August 9, 2026.
- "Duffy moves to codify English proficiency rules for truckers," Washington Examiner, August 7, 2026.
- "DOT Sec Sean Duffy announces English-only CDL test requirement for truckers," Fox Business, February 20, 2026.
- "Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Celebrates One Year of Delivering for American Truckers," FMCSA.dot.gov, May 1, 2026.
