Seven in Ten English-Rule Violations Never Park the Driver: OOIDA Tells FMCSA to Lock In the Out-of-Service Rule as 2,190 Comments Close. Texas Parks 6.8%, California 54%

Since June 25, 2025, an inspector who finds that a truck driver cannot read a highway sign or answer basic questions in English has been told to park that driver. Most of the time, it still does not happen. In comments filed Friday, October 9, the last day of the comment period, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association put a number on it: 97,113 English-language proficiency violations written since enforcement resumed, and only 28,030 of them ended with an out-of-service order. That is 28.9%. In California the rate is 54.2%, in New Mexico 42.6%, in Arizona 16.6%, and in Texas, the state with the most cross-border truck traffic, 6.8%. OOIDA's message to FMCSA was short: finish the rule 'as soon as possible' and keep it from 'ever being watered down again.'

What FMCSA actually proposed

The proposal, 'English Language Proficiency; Out of Service Criteria' (Federal Register document 2026-16288, docket FMCSA-2026-0826), was published August 10 and drew 2,190 comments by the time the window closed October 9, according to the Federal Register's count. It does not change the English standard itself, which has been in 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2) for decades: a driver must read and speak English well enough to talk with the public, understand highway signs, answer an officer and fill out reports. What it changes is the consequence. Today, the out-of-service penalty exists because the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance put it back into its North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria in June 2025, after President Trump's April executive order. CVSA's criteria can be changed by a CVSA vote, and the alliance dropped this exact violation from its list in 2015. FMCSA wants to write the OOS consequence into the federal regulations (390.5 and a new 391.11(c)), which would bind every state that takes federal MCSAP safety money regardless of what CVSA does later. Land Line put it plainly: the enforcement is happening now, and the proposal 'would make it more difficult for that to be changed.'

Why most violations don't park anyone: the border zone

The gap between the violation count and the OOS count is not mainly about lazy enforcement. It is the U.S.-Mexico border commercial zones, the strips along the border where Mexican carriers have long operated short-haul freight. FMCSA's own numbers in the proposal show it. Between June 25, 2025 and March 19, 2026, inspectors wrote 60,399 English-proficiency violations and issued 19,045 OOS orders. Every one of those OOS orders came from outside the border zones; the violations written inside the zones, roughly seven in ten of the total, carried no OOS order at all. That is why Texas and Arizona look so low next to California. The proposal keeps a border exception but narrows it the way CVSA did in April 2026: the inspector looks at the driver's current trip, using the bill of lading, dispatch records, interchange receipts or the driver's own statement. If that trip takes the driver anywhere in the U.S. outside the zone, the driver is placed out of service. If it stays inside, the driver gets the violation and keeps going, even if the cargo is later handed to someone else for a longer run. FMCSA estimates that change alone at about $14.4 million a year in costs to carriers.

Who supports it and who is worried

OOIDA has pushed hardest. It petitioned CVSA in 2025 to restore the out-of-service penalty, and its October 9 comments, signed by president Todd Spencer, called English proficiency 'a life-and-death safety standard,' adding: 'Complying with ELP standards doesn't mean you can recite an encyclopedia, but it should mean you can comprehend routine safety messages.' The group tied the decade of non-enforcement to the growth of non-domiciled CDLs, a separate rule FMCSA finalized in February, and asked the agency to go further on training, licensing and registration. According to Land Line, most of the 2,000-plus comments came from drivers in favor; one, Geoffrey Chandler, wrote: 'This is absolute common sense.' The American Trucking Associations also backs the rule, per Commercial Carrier Journal's summary of the docket. The main caution comes from the Ascendant Trucking Industry Association, which argues that roadside assessments are still not standardized enough before drivers start losing work over them. FMCSA has said more than 26,000 drivers have been placed out of service since enforcement resumed; OOIDA's later count is 28,030. The agency now reviews the comments before deciding on a final rule, and has not given a date.

The rule on paper has not changed in decades. What is being decided now is whether breaking it gets you a line on an inspection report or a parked truck, and whether that answer depends on a CVSA vote or on federal law. With 2,190 comments in and the trucking groups on the same side, FMCSA's next step is the final rule.