U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy recently likened the fraudulent trucking schools targeted in the most recent crackdown to scams like the Quality “Learing” Center in Minnesota.
Duffy recently appeared on an episode of the Fox Across America podcast to discuss the fraudulent CDL school crackdown, which aired on Wednesday, September 9th.
“We’re bringing safety and common sense back to trucking,” Duffy said to guest host Rich Zeoli.
“For commercial drivers, many of these states will use a third-party tester, and these testers would know these guys don’t speak English, and they would give them a commercial driver’s license,” Duffy explained.
“It was kind of like the learning center in Minnesota. Guys would come in, they’d pay a thousand dollars. They just get a certificate that they passed the driving school, that they have the skills and the knowledge to drive an 18-wheeler, an 80,000-pound vehicle. And they didn’t get behind the wheel. They didn’t do any classroom. They did nothing. And they got a certificate that they passed the school.”
“And then they go to a third-party tester, get a driver’s license, hit the road. And as you’re on the way to Walmart or to church on Sunday, lo and behold, you have one of these unqualified drivers slamming into your car and they’re hurting people, killing people,” he continued.
“So we’ve just said no more. We’re shutting down the schools, the worst offenders. And we’re going to start looking at these third-party testers. That are giving licenses out to people who should never have a commercial driver’s license. And safety comes first. Drivers who are well-qualified come first. And if we take the fraud off the road, what happens is rates come up a little bit. And you can have an American commercial driver who can make a living and support their family as opposed to trying to compete with a fraudster that drives rates down…”
Federal agencies have turned their focus on CDL related fraud in recent months, and even shut down 110 CDL schools at the end of August.
