Chaos in US Truck Driving Schools: Hasty Driver Training Leads to Dangers on the Road

A significant number of truck driving schools in the United States operate illegally, with approximately 44% potentially violating regulations, resulting in hundreds of thousands of “rushed” drivers on the road. The U.S. trucking industry has long faced a driver shortage, with many local young people unwilling to pursue this high-pressure profession. Meanwhile, training and regulation are lagging behind, leading some driving schools to adopt unethical teaching methods for profit. Some schools offer accelerated licensing programs; for example, some driving schools in California allow students to obtain licenses with minimal experience driving large trucks. Officials from the American Trucking Association and the Commercial Vehicle Training Association have criticized some so-called “license factories,” issuing licenses to students after only two to three days of instruction, allowing them to drive heavy trucks weighing approximately 36 tons. For instance, in a Florida accident, an Indian-American driver made an illegal U-turn on a toll highway, resulting in the deaths of three people. This driver was an undocumented immigrant with poor English skills, performing poorly on an English proficiency test, answering only 2 out of 12 questions correctly and barely recognizing road safety signs. This reflects the lack of necessary knowledge and skills among many “quick-trained” drivers, posing a significant threat to public safety once on the road. These “quick-trained” drivers increase the risk of traffic accidents. Lacking experience and essential knowledge, they cannot properly handle complex road conditions, easily causing serious accidents that endanger their own lives and the lives of other road users. Such incidents have sparked strong public outrage on the US and Canadian internet, with many not only blaming the drivers involved but also pointing the finger at the entire immigrant community, even triggering conflicts and controversies between immigrant groups and local residents. Driving school violations seriously affect road traffic safety. Relevant US departments should strengthen supervision of driving schools, raise teaching standards and assessment requirements to ensure drivers are truly capable of driving on the road. At the same time, the shortage of truck drivers should be addressed, attracting more people to the industry through reasonable policies and measures, rather than allowing quick-trained drivers to become “gap-fillers” in solving the problem.