Just shy of 2,000 truckers will have to retake their skills tests before January 19th or will lose their licenses thanks to having taken their original tests at a location where a man was found guilty of helping students cheat to earn their licenses.
All 1,997 truckers were issued licenses in Florida by Ellariy Medvednik who the FBI arrested along with three accomplices for helping some of their students fraudulently obtain CDLs. Medvednik pled guilty to charges of fraud in September, and now the Florida Department of Highway Safety is sending letters to all the drivers that were passed at the school since 2012, even if the Medvednik wasn’t responsible for them.
Some of the drivers affected have been driving for years, but will still have their licenses stripped if they don’t pay the $125+ cost, take time off work, and go out of their way to retake the skills tests that they already passed.
Some drivers are complaining that they’re having difficulty finding a driving school that can squeeze in the tests before the January 19th deadline, especially with the influx of nearly 2,000 other drivers looking to do exactly the same thing.
The Florida Department of Highway Safety is unwilling to back down from their deadline, saying “DHSMV is required to enforce the safety of Florida roads pursuant to Florida Statute, and this is the only way that the Department can ensure that all drivers are tested properly.”
Source: news4jax, fleetowner
Kendal says
Burn their asses I am sure their are many others that have done the same the people are pumping out so called drives by the thousands they get behind the wheel kill people and give trucking a bad name. All you gotta do is get a bunch of under cover agents to sign up for the classes and do a sting operation them their will be slit of people behind bars and go after these big companies that hire the drivers as well. Funny a idiot today 2-3 weeks later a Professional Truck Driver not hardly.
John says
Yes, I don’t understand big companies with their ads of hiring inexperienced and training in 2 weeks to cut them them lose and paying them 800/ weekly starting
Jason says
Start with CR England there one of the biggest bottom feeders out there
Jeffrey says
Time off to do what you do everyday. I agree with the above comment.
I was at a T/S, off duty. A “driver” asked people to back up his truck into open spot. Because, his brother didn’t teach him this.
But, is ko kah, I dribe por you.
This is upsetting that a relative can just give away a CDL. And this is a small piece of what we all must deal with.
David caudill says
I agree with you 100% I’ll something over the road instructions done too quickly and in a hurry they don’t take time to teach new drivers the road
V k says
I would like that undercover job to “Bust” these driver mills
Jimmy Lyons says
Me too where do I sign up
Ive says
I agree it’s wrong but they really need to give these people more time to find a school. There’s close to 2 thousand of them and it’s not like there’s a school in every corner. Some of them have been driving for years now, so they can’t be all that bad.
Infosaur says
I wonder if any of them will sue the school for lost wages and their tuition back?
Jason says
The thing is the 19th is still over 20 days awAy thAt truley not a bad deadline
tim says
The only way to change whats wrong in the trucking industry is to go after the customers!!They are the ones saying a load or items on a load have to be there in record time when they are already sitting on a warehouse full and have no place to put it.Once dispatchers and the customers start using their heads to figure out when they need a load and plan ahead so the drivers can get recommended rest and deal with traffic and weather problems and only then will the accident rate go down.Plus end the parasitic police actions of setting up truckers so they can fail so they can write B.S tickets to fund their local community depts.I learned my truck driving behind the wheel after countless hours of driving on the farm. While not perfect i drove till i became disabled without a major wreck or accident with injury.They kept pay as low as they could since the mid 80s , so quality people could not consider truck driving a respectable job that be paid well and be proud of. The chickens are just coming home to roost!
William McKechnie says
Dispatchers who use their heads? What a unique idea. The ONLY way to stop bad trucking is take the blame for EVERYTHING off the driver and assign it fairly to owners, dispatchers, shippers and receivers. Sure, if the driver is at fault, blame him, but rarely is EVERY infraction a drivers responsibility!
Douglas Kirk says
That’s absurd. The dispatcher, shipper, receiver, etc have nothing to do with your abilities as a driver. Not one of them can make you do anything unsafe. If you allow yourself to be buffaloed then you are the problem, not them
Larry says
The driver is at fault dummy cause they have final say if they are doing the job so y’all need to quit ur crying and do your job and these drivers retaking the skills test can go straight to the DMV and do their skills test
Shane Hall says
In Australia we have chain of responsibility laws.
That means that everyone from the shipper to the receiver including the loader are responsible should there be an incident.
E Gonzales says
There you go, they give cdl’s
to anyone that will pay them and the same bunch of idiots will sit and vote on stupid laws like the electronic log mandate because the drivers they put behind the wheel can’t fill a log book and can’t understand uor laws
royce says
There are a hell of alot more unqualified drivers on the road than 2000.
At this stage of the game Florida is slamming the barn door after the horse got out.
The whole damn country is filled with counterfeit everything at this point.
Rufus Crank says
Why are all of you talking like you are professionals? I see how you drive each and every day. I must say i am unimpressed by the so called “professional” drivers you all claim to be. Watch how you speed through work zones, cut off other drivers because your speed limiter truck lost 2mph and you just have to pass because you lost 2mph. Check yourselves before looking at others.
Becka says
I feel bad for the drivers in that 2,000 that didn’t cheat. Maybe those drivers should sue the state of FL. And that deadline with 2,000 drivers is unreal. Why didn’t they just add re-take appointments (with date, time and location, nearest to drivers home) to the letters they sent out to drivers, so nobody had to run around looking for a place to test. It could have been handled better. There are good and bad truck drivers, with 6-+ mo up to 30+ years exp. Some drivers are just bad drivers. But as every truck driver knows, good or bad, the truck driver is always to blame. Why should ppl that didn’t cheat have to pay that $125 again and take time off to do it. Maybe FLORIDA should be paying the retake fees?! I’m happy my husband took his test years ago in a different state.
William McKechnie says
A CDL in the wrong hands is looking for trouble BUT 50% of EVERY driver; cars buses and trucks, could NOT pass a road test if given today. I have had my DL for 50 years and my CDL for 45 years and I passed a road test in 1966 and have NEVER had to take another! Sure I’ve road tested for companies but NOT for the DOT. I could probably pass but I’d be nervous as hell.
Belinda McCullough says
I’m Calling you out… CDL went into effect in 1992. That is not 45 years ago. I was grandfathered into the cdl myself. I got my chauffeurs in 1982 to drive professionally. Did you think no one would catch that? I didn’t go to a school either, I was taught old school.
Dave says
I am a class a driver from central Utah and this just makes me feel like the trucking industry is really going south for real now i worked so hard to get mine and so has millions of others this is a serious simple thing to fix i wont comment on how to fix it but people’s lives and family members lives depend on someone to do the right thing here.
m says
That would be all right with me maybe I could be forced into retirement. you people are absolutely correct in the experience of a professional. A professional knows everything that needs to be known about trucking. How many of us learn something new about trucking every day. Then you are not a professional . I consider myself , after 46 years of trucking , a professional in training because I don’t learn something new I see something new and learn how to overcome it in a split second .
Jay Anderson says
Professional? Sure. Like that idiot last week in a Warner truck, three lanes of traffic with signs posted that say left lane ends in 2 miles, in 1-1/2 miles, in 1 mile, in 1/2 mile, who insisted on staying in the left lane, I was in center lane another truck on my right, we were running neck and neck due to governed speeds, the Warner truck, who was about 1/4 mile behind when we encountered the first of those signs, would go maybe 2mph faster, and that a**h*** persisted in closing on us on our left. Nope, I didn’t yield, he ended up within 100 feet or so of the lane ending and had to apply his brakes hard or run out of lane. Traffic? Light, plenty of room for him to have merged into the center lane well before that left lane ended. Professional? I think not.
Juan Robledo says
Everybody needs to check themselves, this industry has gone from descent to just a headache this day’s, after 25 years over the road nothing surprises me or the constant mind blogging driving I see everyday
David says
When I went thru driving school years ago the best driver there had no formal training, no CDL b/c he started driving a truck before there was such a thing as a CDL, there were no schools, his dad taught him as a teen. But, he had to go thru all the formality of training, a CDL, etc. That does not enhance safety one iota.
Mary says
Since 2012 come on that’s 4 years. Even the crappiest driver should have been able to hone his/her skills after 4 years. Should be grandfathered in and start cracking down on cdl mills. Not the students fault and we all know it is not a 3 week school that makes the driver but the time behind the wheel. O say if they have held their cdl for 6 months and been employed as a driver grandfather them in
Nick says
Why do they have to retest at a school? Can’t they test at Florida DMV on any day they can get there? Also Jay Anderson you are definitely not a professional driver either.
Steve says
Agreed.
Steve Garrett says
Lots of things wrong here. First of all the jerks passing people to accomplish getting their cdls. Second the so called drivers for not being able to pass on their own skills and aptitude. Taking jobs that their really not qualified for, knowing that but taking it and hoping they can fake a way through it all before the possibility of it crashing down around them. I myself don’t feel badly for any involved simply because it was all based on cheats and lies. If they loose their license, remember the didn’t deserve them in the first place. They brought the problem on themselves. Take some responsibility. Next the US government for making this a federal license. Big government finding a way to take more money. They should have stayed out of it from the beginning. Setting people up for failure. Next the big companies for working on quantity and not quality hiring these people knowing that they do not have the experience to put them out there in the first place. I hope it hits them all hard.
Terry says
if you had followed the story. it was a russuian dude who was working with a legit skills tester who was paying the guy to give the skills test to all his buddies and people who had cash that could,nt speak english, my son was there taking his skills test when he got busted, lots of cops and lots of guns to secure a 78 year old guy
Gary says
I recently graduated and got my cdl in Spokane . The tester didn’t cut anybody slack. 2 or 3 out of 10 failed. There were people in my class that came back to retest 3 times. I feel better for it. Washington state requires 160 hours of school. The folks I was there with, averaged about 190. I think this made a better overall driver out of me and I’ve been driving since 1976
undercover boss says
LOL, when will they stop “LEASE PURCHASE PLANS?
dave says
Go to Chicago bust all them illegal schools
Steve says
Who gets the $125 dollars? That after 1,997 drivers becomes roughly $250,000. All this is about money. You could cross reference the names with the MVR’s and knock it down to any multiple unsafe moving violations or accidents and just retest those drivers. This is again about money. As I’m sure less than 100 of that 1,997 has had any major problems in the last 3 years.
I love being a truck driver.
abdel lekh says
i agree with what been said. there is too many drivers who has to retake the test,