On April 28, 2025, President Donald J. Trump issued Executive Order 14286, “Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America’s Truck Drivers” (the “Executive Order”). The Executive Order relates to the application and enforcement of Title 49 C.F.R. 391.11(b)(2) of the Code of Federal Regulations during road side inspections. 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2) makes it a Federal requirement that drivers of commercial motor vehicles can “read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.” The Executive Order called upon the Secretary of Transportation, acting through the Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (the “FMCSA”) to issue new guidance outlining revised inspection procedures to ensure compliance with the English Language Proficiency (“ELP”) requirements under 49 C.F.R. 391.11(b)(2).
On May 20, 2025, the FMCSA released a memorandum, Enforcement Policy Memorandum on ELP Requirements (the “Policy Memorandum”) to provide guidance to FMCSA enforcement personnel providing oversight of 49 C.F.R. 391.11(b)(2) in conducting inspections to evaluate whether drivers can satisfy the ELP qualification requirements under 49 C.F.R. 391.11(b)(2) by responding to official inquiries and understanding highway traffic signs and signals in the English language.
Background on ELP enforcement
Although the ELP requirement for commercial motor vehicle drivers, codified in 49 C.F.R. 391.11(b)(2), has long been a federal standard, its enforcement has been inconsistent. In 2005, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (the “CVSA”) amended its North American Standard Out-of-Service criteria to include ELP violations, allowing inspectors to remove non-compliance drivers from service. In 2007 and 2008, the FMCSA issued additional guidance to help inspectors evaluate drivers’ ability to communicate in English sufficiently and recognize and explain highway traffic signs in a language other than English, provided the inspector was able to understand the explanation.
In 2015, the CVSA removed ELP from its Out-of-Service criteria, and in 2016, the FMCSA issued a policy that further relaxed enforcement by directing inspectors to cite ELP violations without placing drivers out-of-service.
New ELP requirements
The Policy Memorandum now reverses the recent softened approach. Effective immediately this policy advises FMCSA personnel to initiate all roadside inspections in English. If the inspector’s initial contact with the driver indicates that the driver may not understand the inspector’s initial instructions, the inspector must conduct a two-step ELP assessment in order to evaluate the driver’s compliance with ELP requirements:
Step 1: Driver Interview – Determining a Driver’s Ability to Respond Sufficiently to Official Inquiries
The inspector should inform the driver that the driver should respond to the inspector in English. Tools to facilitate communication, such as interpreters or smart phone applications should not be used during the driver interview, as these tools may mask a driver’s inability to communicate in English.
FMCSA recommends that inspectors ask questions that would demonstrate whether a driver can respond to questions relating to the following:
- The origin and destination of a recent or planned trip.
- The amount of time spent on duty, including driving time and the record of duty status (or logbook).
- The information contained in the driver’s license.
- Information contained in shipping papers (actual or sample shipping papers, including hazardous materials shipping papers, if applicable) for the load transported/to be transported.
- Vehicle equipment subject to inspection.
If the inspector determines the driver is unable to respond to official inquiries in English sufficiently, the FMCSA’s policy requires the inspector to cite the driver for an ELP violation.
Step 2: Highway Traffic Sign Recognition Assessment – Determining a Driver’s Ability to Understand Sufficiently US Highway Traffic Signs Including Changeable Signs in the English Language
If drivers pass Step 1, the inspector will move on to Step 2, which tests the driver’s understanding of US highway signs. The inspector will ask the driver to explain the meaning of various signs from the Federal Highway Administration’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways (MUTCD) and dynamic message signs. The driver’s explanation can be in any language, so long as the inspector can understand the driver’s explanation.
Under the FMCSA’s policy, if the inspector cites the driver for a violation of 49 C.F.R. 391.11(b)(2), the inspector must take the following actions: (1) effective June 25, 2025, place the driver immediately out-of-service; and (2) when warranted, initiate an action to disqualify the driver from operating commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce.
Following the successful completion of an ELP assessment, the inspector can proceed with the interview in a language other than English.
The precise strategies that roadside inspectors may adopt in order to test English proficiency remain unclear, as the various examples of driver interview questions and the specific highway traffic signs drivers may be asked to identify were redacted from the public version of FMCSA’s policy memorandum. At a minimum, drivers can expect to be tested on their ability to communicate effectively about issues that are directly related to the work they are performing. For example, they should be able to understand instructions issued by roadside officers, and respond to any request for the name of the motor carrier they work for, the route they are travelling, the types of commodities they are hauling, hours-of-service issues, pre-trip inspections, and any stops they have made or plan to make along the way. Based on the information released to date by the FMCSA, drivers are not required to be fluent in English, nor is there any reason to expect that drivers will be cited for ELP violations solely because they speak with a heavy regional or foreign accent. However, carriers should take steps now to ensure that all drivers who are dispatched for cross-border work into the United States are aware of, and prepared to demonstrate their compliance with, ELP requirements.
Read FMCSA’s entire response and Executive Order 14286 for more details.
For more information on English Language Proficiency requirements and further developments related to this matter, please contact a member of Miller Thomson’s Transportation & Logistics Team. Stay tuned for our next article, which will examine these issues through the lens of Canadian employment and human rights law, as well as Quebec French language compliance requirements.
