(WBEN/AP) - The US Department of Transportation says about 44 percent of truck driving schools in the country are failing training standards.
The Transportation Department said it plans to revoke the certification of nearly 3,000 schools unless they comply with training requirements in the next 30 days. Another 4,500 schools are being warned.
"It seems like an astronomical number of schools that are doing it," said Andrew Streit, Executive Director of Stevens Driving School. "We knew that some were doing it, but obviously not that many."
The crackdown is an effort to ensure truck drivers are qualified to hold a commercial license. It began after a truck driver that was not authorized to be in the country made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people.
It’s not clear how action against these trucking schools could affect the existing shortage of drivers, but the executive director of the largest association of trucking schools, Andrew Poliakoff, said many of the schools being decertified were questionable “CDL mills” that would advertise being able to train drivers in just a few days.
In established training schools, students normally spend at least a month and get lessons both behind the wheel and in the classroom.
"I can't speak to other states, but in New York State we have a New York CDL Certification," Streit said. "You have to take a road test, you have to pre-trip, you have to know you're backing maneuvers. There are standards to get them done. Whether those are being bypassed somehow, some way, I don't know."
He added that he doesn't believe there's an issue in Western New York.
The Secretary of Transportation has threatened to pull federal funding from California and Pennsylvania over the issue, and threatened to withhold $30.4 million from Minnesota if that state doesn’t address shortcomings in its commercial driver’s license program.