MAGA fans are rejoicing on social media in favor of President Donald Trump’s plan to sign an executive order requiring commercial truck drivers to speak English.
Breitbart News reported that Trump would sign the order Monday evening because “President Trump believes that English is a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers.” Last month, Trump designated English as “the official language of the United States.”
“This is such a big deal! So grateful for this, the roads will be much safer. Like many, I have seen many accidents or near accidents from unqualified drivers,” posted @coffeegirlvegas.
Not sure about other states, but in mine, the ability to read and understand English is a requirement for getting a license…
Now you could make an argument that’s not the same as speaking English, and my rebuttal is “should we ban mute, or speech-impared people from getting a CDL”?
, and my rebuttal is “should we ban mute, or speech-impared people from getting a CDL”?
Well those people are already Undesirables under the rule of el trumpo, so their answer is… yeah?
I’m not really clear how they would even enforce this. They don’t have a database or standard test for speaking english.
FBI: “Do you speak english?”
Driver: “Sí señor. Aber ich lerne auch Deutsch.”
FBI: “Fatastich. Guten Abend.”
Trump can’t even speak English.
“This is such a big deal! So grateful for this, the roads will be much safer. Like many, I have seen many accidents or near accidents from unqualified drivers,” posted @coffeegirlvegas.
Oh yea? You and many others have witnessed many accidents that were due to a truck driver’s inability to speak English?
You dumb bitch.
It’s already part of the federal commercial driver regulations too… so no. No they have not. The most they’ve seen is someone with a heavy accent and maybe broken English.
It’s already part of the federal commercial driver regulations too
If it is already part of the rules, what makes this EO a bad thing? Sounds like it’s just enforcing a status-quo that nobody had an issue with.
“Interpreters are prohibited during the administration of skills tests. Applicants must be able to understand and respond to verbal commands and instructions in English by a skills test examiner.” CDL Standards
Because this EO isn’t about speaking English for road safety. The same way locking trans people out of bathrooms isn’t about protecting women. Or how deporting green card holders and naturalised citizens isn’t about US Security.
There are so many examples of this from the last 100 days. The US is honestly a lost cause at this point.
From my personal experience the bigotry towards non white non male folks in the industry can be pretty extreme, so off the very top of my head I can think of several ways a bombastic EO could inflame that worse. Not to mention I’d like my government to focus on fixing shit instead of meaningless performative bullshit
If it is already part of the rules, what makes this EO a bad thing?
It’s a power grab by the executive that will be used to, for example, harass minorities driving on the street. If it’s already part of the rules then it doesn’t need an executive order.
What’s bad about performative actions in the form of executive orders applying rules to situations the president has clearly demonstrated he doesn’t understand?
That’s one of the infuriating things about these people. They’ll just make up BS that makes Trump seem reasonable. Trump does this English only thing, and now suddenly non-english truck drivers causing accidents is a thing, something that’s been a problem all along and thank Jesus he’s finally fixing it. Even though this was never actually a real issue that anyone even imagined before today.
I have a CDL, Class A with X endorsement.
This changes nothing. CDL manuals, exams, and paperwork are all in English. What I think Trump thinks he’s doing is banning Mexicans from driving trucks in the US, but this is controlled by a reciprocity agreement between the US and Mexico. Surprise, Mexicans don’t have to take American exams for a CDL when they can have a license issued by the Mexican government.
Basically all this is is white supremacist virtue signaling.
I would love to see the US go a month without Mexican truck drivers. The UK pulled the same stunt with Polish truck drivers. People were rejoicing at empty shelves and overflowing garbage bins.
Nah you’re still thinking about it within the the UN/long peace legal framework. They can just do a decree that says no mexicans, and their extrajudidical thugs will take the signal to harass and murder truck drivers.
B-but that’s illegal ☝️🤓
Are you going to stop them?
Are you going to stop them?
Truck drivers aren’t the most progressive, but if they see fellow drivers getting harassed/attacked by four wheelers you can bet your ass they’re gonna go Mad Max on their asses for that
Good thing we won’t need so many of those when supply chains dry up from tariffs!
And enforcement was relaxed under Obama
I read comments like this and all I can feel is astonishment that anyone’s life is so empty that they can dedicate time to caring about this.
Like, it sounds made up, but honestly whether true or not… like, who cares? It’s so trivial and life has so much to offer. This comment is the first and last time I’ll ever think about this.
Well, it’s fact. Some truckers and trucker’s groups have theorized that the increase in CDL involved accidents since the relaxing of this rule are caused instead of simply correlated.
I actually agree with enforcing rules like this so even though trump’s an asshole, this one might improve safety.
I think it would be great if you can list some credible source before asserting a fact.
Also I have a question, why do truck drivers speaking English makes the road more safe? As long as they understand the required knowledge, I don’t see the language they speak matters in terms of safety, but that could just be my lack of understanding in this area.
It’s in the news?
Quickest example I can come up with:
“Winter conditions ahead, reduce speed now.”
The article states: “Republican Representative Harriet Hageman of Wyoming … [states] a consistent rise in fatal truck crashes since its implementation.”
Whereas your statement is “[Requiring truck driver to speak English improves safety] is a fact”.
I am not saying what you said is necessarily wrong or the policy is necessarily harmful; but I feel we probably need more proof than “a republican representative said so”, to assert a certain statement as “a fact”.
BTW, neither you nor the news article provided the relevant data, which IMHO doesn’t really inspire confidence in your argument. Let alone all the potiential confounding variable others have mentioned.
You know what also happened in 2016? They revised the definition of “large truck” to include 329 more vehicles. By increasing the sample size you’re going to see more accidents. Common cause of accidents is fatigue from drivers working too many hours. That gets better if there’s less drivers and they have to know English though right?
Doesn’t the US have a shitton of unstandardized road signs which are just words?
I feel like you have to have some English proficiency to understand them.
If all those signs were in Chinese, it would take a commercial truck driver about a week to memorize the writing for each and learn what it means.
You don’t need to speak the language for that.But the inconsistency is the problem.
Take a look at the top signs about driving on the shoulder. Who is to say there aren’t twenty more variations?
Maybe a couple of
“Driving on shoulder mandatory”
“Trucks on shoulder only”
“Passing on shoulder permitted”
“$100 fine for driving on shoulder”
“Keep shoulder clear”
“No trucks allowed on shoulder”
There doesn’t seem to be any standard. It’s just text.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin
This is just an excuse for ICE to pull people over. And since they’re a part of the executive branch, they care less about due process and laws.
Won’t this disqualify half his illiterate base
to be fair it’s about SPEAKING english, not READING english…
As always another trump “policy” that’ll backfire spectacularly
Probably won’t matter much. No ships means nothing to haul
Is there any such requirement for ships in international waters?
English seems a bit too narrow, but I could see one of maybe 10 languages being a requirement (English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Mandarin, Russian, Portuguese, etc)
Or perhaps, like the UN requires, at least three on this list.
Not sure about ocean shipping, but English is the standard language for Air Traffic Control. Specifically, Aviation English, but that came about through a specific need. The dangers of an air traffic accident are much higher, the training requirements for an air traffic controller or pilot already more involved then a truck driver, and English being the most spoken language in the word, when you include second and third languages, made English being the standard the most logical. I don’t know Aviation English, but I would assume it strips out any regional slag or local idioms.
Truck drivers don’t need a common language because traffic signage is designed to be readable without knowing being fluent in the language. If you can read the numbers and memorize what the sign shapes mean, you’re fine. If something goes wrong, you can pull off to the side. Something you can’t just do in an airplane.
So…. Let’s get this straight… he is signing orders to make things happen that have been happening for almost a century now??
What’s next, an executive order to make air breathable??
Oh definitely not - he has been attacking the Clean Air act.
I’m assuming it’s just a way to sneak literacy tests into something. You can speak english, but can you speak it well enough to pass a subjective test administered by someone who hates you for being hispanic?
Classic authoritarian tactics:
Target a marginalized group with an issue that you’ve framed as ridiculous or politically suicidal to disagree with, get public opinion riled up by manipulating their grievances through exploiting their internal prejudices, and make everything an extension of preserving national security. Once you’ve manipulated enough people into giving you extralegal power, simply expand the circle of ‘national security threats’.
In just a few months we’ve watched Trump:
steal the power of the purse and the power to enact tariffs from Congress,
create a precedent for the unconstitutional arrest, detainment, and removal of legal residents and dissenting citizens,
iterate his intentions to restart American expansionism into Canada and Greenland,
Successfully twist the arm of media companies, law firms, and universities into doing his bidding,
And his other executive order directs Dept. Of Homeland Security, DoJ, and DoD to create a plan for implementation of military and national security assets to “prevent crime and protect public safety”.
Welcome to the ‘find out’ stage.
You’re 100 percent dead-on.
And alongside this point, I really wonder how many of the kids that were shouting at everyone to not vote because of the “doing a genocide thing” would have done things differently if they had actually believed us all when we tried to tell them this shit would happen.
And I mean truly and honestly. Not the front they put up when they don’t want to publicly own their part in causing this to happen.
Because I can say that as a voter, I am not at all in the “find out” phase. I already knew this would happen. There was never anything to find out.
Executive orders are not laws. He can direct how the law in enforced, but he can’t just unilaterally define new laws
I keep seeing comments from people pretending that the way it is meant to be is the way it is. Trump has said the law is what he says. There is no effective defense against him declaring laws if there is no enforcement. He has defied judges orders and will continue to do so. The EOs are laws because they are being followed and nobody is stopping them.
Saying he can’t do that comes across like a right wing talking point. Trying to convince people that he can’t do what he is clearly doing, so those who are opposed will just sit around thinking the natural order will take care of it.
And it’s working. Sure there have been some protests. But no where the amount needed to make a change. Trump is now a dictator, and far too many Americans are ok with it, directly and passively.
Actually there have been some massive protests against all this BS Trump has done. The media is just complicit and basically none of these protests have been covered in any mainstream outlets. The protests ARE there but if you are not driving by them on the way to work you probably do not even know about them. Thanks MSM~!@
This is already a Commercial Driver’s License requirement. What is the specific issue here?
“Interpreters are prohibited during the administration of skills tests. Applicants must be able to understand and respond to verbal commands and instructions in English by a skills test examiner.” CDL Standards
You don’t need to speak English to know turn left and stop.
You’re right. You just need to be able to read, write, and understand instructions. Wait that sounds like knowing the language
Just like reddit to downvote someone who actually knows what the fuck they’re talking about because it doesn’t sound right to you.
You’re being down voted by others. Mostly cause what you said is stupid
And yet I know more than you and am correct. Maybe because you are just guessing and don’t have actual first hand knowledge.
It is quite common to have CDL drivers that only speak Spanish whether or not they’re supposed to be able to speak English.
They still understood enough English to pass the test in the first place. I’m assuming with your first hand knowledge you knew that. Or are you just guessing there’s a lot of Spanish speaking people that got interpreters? This is about there already being a rule to speak English to get your license. It’s not about what language they primarily speak. This is just political theater to make magats happy. You’re just stuck on this “I have to be right or my online persona will be ruined”. Chill man. You don’t even sound smart online
Oof that will crash the trucking industry.
How so?
I’m not sure how you could possibly get a CDL without speaking English. Also trucking is a good way to lose money.
I personally know at least a dozen that I work with daily at work that do not have any English fluency whatsoever.
Actually it’s helped my Spanish skills lol
I had no idea that was possible
Like many, I have seen many accidents or near accidents from unqualified drivers
Can anyone explain how knowing English would reduce traffic accidents? Is it because of detour signs?
In the US, traffic signs with crucial information are often written in only English text, no symbols, pictograms or anything else that could make it possible to guess what the sign is saying without being able to read English.
Can you please elaborate with some examples if possible? I’m trying to picture this from highways and roadways here in Florida, but I am struggling to get your gist. I will look again on the way home tonight. However I am not a trucker or cdl so I might be oblivious to some.
This video, Why US Signs Look Different Than The Rest Of The World’s, contains a lot of examples of such US road signs that depend on English text to convey their message:
Wow, that video conveys exactly the difference, thanks. Seems like a USA stubbornness thing, akin to imperial vs metric system, oy vey.
