There is a real safety problem on American roads, and the supply chain is part of the cause.
According to a recent FreightWaves article, there are approximately 100,000 truck crashes annually, resulting in roughly 5,000 fatalities. The problem is growing; there has been a 40 percent increase in deaths over the last 10 years. The odds of being killed by a commercial truck are about 20 times greater than dying in an airline crash.
Not all accidents are the same, but it is the highest profile ones that seem to be steering the general conversation about what can be done to solve this problem.
Two of the most notable accidents this year have been caused by questionably licensed drivers, one in Florida that killed a family of three and another in California that also killed three people. These high profile incidents have caused states and the Federal government to start digging into who is getting these licenses and how.
CDL Mills are Churning Out Problem Drivers
If you’ve been following recent headlines about CDLs, you’re probably heard the phrase “CDL mills” used.
A CDL mill pumps out licensed (but not necessarily qualified) drivers as fast as it can. Put more eloquently by FreightWaves: It refers to operations that exploit regulatory loopholes to rapidly process would-be drivers through minimal training before sending them to obtain their licenses.
Although it was meant to cut red tape and address a presumed driver shortage, it led to the creation of 32,000 registered providers offering minimal training in exchange for a CDL.
Traditionally, candidates would attend one of approximately 2,000 state-licensed CDL schools. Now, however, drivers can receive minimal training from one of over 32,000 training providers that operate with very little oversight.
More reputable schools provide over 100 hours of comprehensive training, while self-certified providers may offer as little as a few hours of orientation before sending drivers to obtain their licenses. Some CDL training schools even claim they can get people a license in 24 hours —sometimes by just watching YouTube videos.
But that doesn’t mean that there are not standards that have to be met - it just suggests that trainers are not all meeting them and there is not enough oversight or enforcement.
The Cost of Lowering the Bar on CDL Standards
The rules regarding CDL administration were driven in large part by industry lobbying. Those parties believed that if the government deregulated driver training requirements, it would address their concerns about perpetual driver shortages.
If there is a driver shortage big enough to threaten the movement of freight, and therefore the health of the economy, then you can make a case to lower the standards and make it easier
for more drivers to get their CDLs.
Not everyone agrees about the idea of a shortage, however, and this is important, because recent accidents suggest that CDL standards need to be raised, not lowered.
The American Trucking Association (ATA) has long asserted that there is a driver shortage, but others are not so sure. For instance, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) believes that claims about there being a driver shortage are false, and the data is on their side.
Studies have confirmed that OOIDA is right: there is no driver shortage. Raising wages is proposed as a fix to draw in new candidates and keep established ones.
The ATA has stressed that they mean ‘qualified’ drivers. ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said, “Qualified means you can speak English, read road signs, understand safety rules, and respect our laws. [...] Qualified means you are not abusing alcohol or using drugs. Qualified means you earned your CDL the right way, not through a rubber-stamped process in a state that looks the other way.”
Unfortunately, a “rubber-stamped process” is exactly what we’ve gotten. Some states and the Federal government had been looking the other way, but with the headlines continuing to reinforce the safety risk presented by underqualified commercial drivers, they can’t do it any longer.
As Craig Fuller, Founder & CEO of FreightWaves said in a video statement, “anyone could get a CDL.” He laments that CDLs have become pieces of paper that mean nothing. Interestingly, he thinks it is just as important that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is going after the companies that hire questionable drivers as it is that he is fighting back against the CDL mills themselves.
The current dynamic makes it harder for safe, compliant trucking companies to operate profitably, and that should be the goal: suitable established qualifications, proper enforcement and accountability, and safe sustainable careers that attract responsible drivers.
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