CHP Begins Enforcing English Language Requirements During Inspections
Despite all the heated rhetoric and lawsuit filed by California over U.S. DOT cutting $40 million in Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program (MCSAP) funding from the state for not enforcing minimal English standards for commercial drivers at roadside, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) has begun to actually enforce the decades old regulation (§ 391.11 (b)(2) General qualifications of drivers).
391.11 (b)(2) simply states, “Can read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.”
WSTA has confirmed with the CHP that “effective December 23, 2025, the CHP amended its Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance North American Standard Out-of-Service Criteria regulations to incorporate the revisions adopted by the CVSA on June 25, 2025 (that responded to the April 2025 Trump Executive Order directing the FMCSA to strengthen the English Language Proficiency requirements for commercial motor vehicle operators). This change is incorporated into Title 13, CCR, Division 2, Chapter 6.5, Amended Article 7.5, Section 1239 (read it here).
Background
CHP had never really enforced the English requirement at roadside. It was only sporadically noted on inspections reports and only cited the federal code, not a state code for the violation. There was no action taken against the driver if found in violation. U.S. DOT actually noted that in 30,000+ commercial inspections, only one violation was noted. Meanwhile states aggressively enforcing the rule have hundreds or thousands of violations and following the requirements take the driver out-of-service.
This all came to a head in August of 2025 after a California licensed truck driver, Harjinder Singh made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike resulting in three deaths. Officials in Florida claimed Singh didn’t understand English and should not have been licensed. U.S. DOT then sent California a notice that it had not adopted compatible laws with federal regulations as is required to receive MCSAP funding.
The Newsom Administration instead of attempting to calm the waters decided to go down a path of obstructionism – even though the state was in the wrong…likely for political reasons.
In October, after attempting to get California to adopt and enforce the regulation – like most states, and California’s (read Newsom Administration) continued foot dragging and obstructionism, the feds issued a Notice of Final Determination of Nonconformity as part of a process to revoke $40 million in safety grants. At the same time, the feds announced they would withhold over $40 million in grant funding.
In December, California decided to sue U.S. DOT in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California over the withholding of the $40 million. WSTA’s experience with that court is that it’s adverse to controversial lawsuits (we sued CARB in that court and filed the first legal challenge to the A-B-C test there too).
In California’s lawsuit challenging the withholding they had the “chutzpah” to legally argue the state already complied with the regulation during the driver’s licensing phase through DMV. That legal rationale was likely not going to go very far, even in the very liberal Ninth Circuit.
It is not even close to compatible to compare evaluations by poorly trained DMV personnel during the licensing phase to excellently trained and highly specialized commercial law enforcement officers at roadside interacting with truck drivers or at CHP truck scales. Additionally, California’s argument ignores the upwards of one million commercial drivers entering the state each year from other states (where there has been similar licensing issues) and foreign jurisdictions.
California is not the only state on US DOT’s radar for not properly enforcing federal regulations, for which billions are transferred from federal coffers to states to enforce the federal requirements. It is fair to say that California made itself a prime target because of Governor Newsom’s incessant desire to thwart any and everything coming from the Trump Administration, no matter if the feds were correct. Bringing the hammer down on California is clearly intended to get other non-conforming states to get their houses in order.
With CHP’s adoption, we expect to see more violations noted on inspection reports as well as those same drivers placed out-of-service. Supposedly, for California based drivers adversely affected, there will be (eventually) a notification pipeline to CA DMV to facilitate a driver seeking “re-assessment,” but that process is not up and running yet.
