CVSA adding English Language Proficiency to Out of Service Criteria

I figured as much... but to get people to really think... I quoted you too.

 

You had 15 years of training before you went OTR. Makes a huge difference.

If you think back to your time as a child worker (sarcasm), you had a lot of space and time to learn. By the time you went OTR you'd already dealt with BOLs, weights, maintenance issues, etc. You say you were using common sense, I'd say you were using critical thinking skills and applying previously acquired knowledge to a new environment. Drop you into a completely different industry, odds are you'd be regarded as someone with no common sense when you screwed things up.

Training has EVERYTHING to do with the amount of unsafe operators in this industry. Training is what creates competency. I'm pretty sure that your Dad/Uncles/Brothers/Farm Hands gave you pointers and feedback. Not to mention lighting you up when you made a boneheaded decision/tore something up.

 

Your last sentence is the elephant in the room that no one's talking about. The time to deal with English proficiency is on the CDL test, which this order does nothing about.

I'm all for enforcing a literacy test on CDL applicants. Once they have a license, I'm wary about how enforcement will be done.

 

Well....you learned to drive a truck from 7 years old. Were you not shown some basics? Were you not shown how to operate the truck? Somebody showed you something on the farm, and you got a lot of practice before getting out here on these highways. I call that "training." To me, training doesn't have to come from a CDL school solely. I don't really think it matters how or where you learned to drive a truck as long as you can demonstrate the ability to do so. I don't think its necessary to do the 160 hrs thing if you already know what you're doing. If you can get a hold to a truck and pass the test, i dont see why that would be a problem, because drivers would probably learn more the way you did as opposed to school. I certainly did not learn a much info, we didnt even couple and uncouple. There are few if any drivers in this day and age that got that kind of practice and training you did. I got 7 weeks before I was turned solo, and still had a lot to learn. It was about 5 years roughly before I had a good handle on trucking, and I am man enough to admit that. I believe there is a learning curve of years before every driver gets a good hold on trucking. I'm of the opinion that common sense comes from basic to extensive knowledge and experience. If you don't have the experience or knowledge, its going to be tough to figure out situations. English profiency......I get it, and in another era, I would probably take it more seriously. Not in this era. It's too easy to get a CDL, and NOBODY hardly reads signs anymore. People are solely reliant on their GPS, and I have seen this repeatedly, with my own eyes, just within the company I work for!

They repeatedly send someone with me, or me with someone to recover a truck, and the drivers don't pay attention to any signs. They don't even know to stay on numbered highways if unfamiliar with a territory. I got to Memphis with one driver not long ago, he was driving. If you've been through Memphis, then you know that I-55 from Arkansas into Tennessee is getting worked on(much needed). It was very congested during the thick of the construction so there were signs suggesting to take I-40 to I-240 to get into Mississippi, since we were headed to New Orleans. Periodically coming down 55 in Arkansas you'd see the warning to take the alternative route in Memphis. He didn't read not one sign. He couldn't understand why his GPS started recalculating. I had to explain to him what was going on, and reroute him, but he ws waiting for the GPS to catch up even though I kept telling him not to focus on it, and just follow the signs for Jackson, Miss. I keep harping on this, but if there are English deficient drivers, and there are, I've come across a couple of them, navigation systems are covering up the deficiency. If you really want to make trucking safer, and get rid of non-English speaking drivers, perhaps reading an atlas should be part of the test, and ban navigation systems. That will truly weed out the weak in the industry. I know that will never happen, but if I had the power, that's how I'd do it.

 

I agree reading an atlas is is a very critical skill... and yes u suppose when I think about it all... I did have training, just not in the way that is accepted as training today.

 

I always think about that guy and how he said that.. maybe I'm just an armchair qb and its easy to say what I would do from the outside looking in , but that guys statement has always bothered me....

any reasonable hand with a conscious would've sacrificed their own life and ran into the bridge instead of into stopped traffic.. I'd like to think I would say a prayer and thank jesus for the life he gave me and let it ride ..I ain't taking anybody with me as a consequence of making bad decisions at rhe top of the mountain... what'd he kill like 14 something people? That's alot of people to kill that are completely innocent and alot of families that lost their loved ones of someone else's cowardness

 

No, not really. Nobody taught you to “trip plan”. Nobody taught you to “pass a DOT inspection”. Nobody taught you how to drop a trailer, back into a dock, etc, etc, etc.

You and I are from the same mold, except on my first solo trip, it was a load of live fish to Calgary. I’d never seen a log book before, lol.

 

Not so much, those 3 languages, Arabic, Hindi, & Mandarin are very difficult languages for the average American to learn.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

The absolute sheer driving force of our national economy - without truck drivers, our entire national economy would come to an absolute standstill - if not outright be dead.

Over the mountains, through the woods, into the valleys, coast to coast, from sea to shining sea - truck drivers can and do go anywhere and everywhere, every day, every night, all year round.

 

Would it shock you if I told you that in a fleet of 200 OTR drivers less than half answered Yes to having a Road Atlas in their truck. The ones that use GPS only almost half said they use Google and not a Trucking GPS of any type. This is a mix of driving exp levels, most of them have become to comfortable with the job.

 

@db2681
When you say too comfortable with the job, are you referring to actual job performance, job security in itself, or both?

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

The absolute sheer driving force of our national economy - without truck drivers, our entire national economy would come to an absolute standstill - if not outright be dead.

Over the mountains, through the woods, into the valleys, coast to coast, from sea to shining sea - truck drivers can and do go anywhere and everywhere, every day, every night, all year round.