Commercial truck drivers in Kentucky who have trouble with English could soon be removed from the highway. The federal Department of Transportation is reinstating a rule that will take truckers off the road who don’t demonstrate English proficiency. Mike Thompson is a lifelong trucker who’s the school administrator at Genesis Trucking Academy in Berea. He said among their recent graduates are natives of Haiti and Ukraine, both of whom were excellent students.
“Matter of fact, they got it done between two and three weeks. Very good. They're going to make some good truck drivers. They, they were very fluent in reading and writing English. They had a dialect that took you a little bit to kind of get on to it.”
On the other hand, Thompson said some foreign-born truckers should be sidelined.
“I've seen a lot of drivers that park right in the middle of the highway and, you know, in a driving lane instead of the emergency lane, not knowing any better, you know, creating some dangerous situations at times because they can't or don't understand even the basic road rules.
The federal Department of Transportation announced that starting June 25, commercial motor vehicle drivers failing ELP tests will be placed out of service.
