California must revoke unlawfully issued trucking licenses | Opinion
As the owner of several professional truck driver training schools in California, I help train California’s new truckers and connect them to careers in the transportation industry. To preserve the national supply chain, and to honor the service of California’s commercial drivers, it is imperative that state leaders work to properly oversee the training and licensing of every California truck driver.
That’s why I was disappointed to see that California failed to meet the deadline set by U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to revoke 17,000 improperly issued licenses in the state. California’s status as stewards of the state’s supply chain was dealt a blow when Duffy recently moved to withhold nearly $160 million in federal transportation funding due to the state’s revocation failure.
Two different issues are emerging: California’s licensing process and the training of drivers themselves.
Federal reprimand
California’s highways are among the busiest in the nation, and well-trained California truckers traverse them each day while providing a critical service to the Golden State supply chain. In an even more concerning turn of events, Duffy recently said California could lose its authority to issue commercial driver’s licenses if the state continues to disregard the federal directive.
This would be terrible for the transportation industry broadly and would harm the thousands of Californians that train to become truck drivers each year.
As Duffy stated, “our demands were simple: follow the rules, revoke the unlawfully-issued licenses to dangerous foreign drivers, and fix the system so this never happens again.”
Highways at risk
Aside from federal and state conflict on licensing, there is an additional issue in California that continues to require greater attention from state regulators: poor training. In California and across the country, multiple recent crashes involving tractor-trailers have been tied to improperly trained or fraudulently licensed commercial drivers.
As the proprietor of high-quality truck driving schools in California, I know that robust training and diligent state licensing are critical to preserving safety. When even one unauthorized commercial driver slips through the cracks, the consequences can be catastrophic.
Recent nationwide audits and sweeping enforcement actions by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration highlight a deeper vulnerability in our licensing system: training and verification standards are being manipulated by bad actors in the commercial driver’s license training industry, and it is putting the nation’s highways at risk.
From the Central Valley to Southern California, a disturbing pattern has emerged: drivers with inadequate training or falsified paperwork are slipping through regulatory cracks and into 80,000-pound vehicles. These incidents have shaken public confidence and exposed the urgent need to eliminate so-called “commercial driver’s license mills,” fraudulent or substandard training operations that exploit regulatory gaps and send unprepared drivers onto our roads.
Some drivers pass through sham training programs, while others obtain a commercial driver’s license by presenting fraudulent immigration documents. Recognizing the widespread national danger this poses to highway safety, Duffy launched nationwide enforcement actions in response to alarming abuses in California and other states.
Federal scrutiny on all commercial driver’s license training and licensing activities is long overdue, and California needs to comply with U.S. Department of Transportation’s revocation demands to demonstrate the sort of state and federal partnership that advances safety on the highways.
Professional training is key
High-quality commercial driver training cannot be rushed, skipped or faked. It requires multiple weeks of training, including rigorous instruction, hands-on skill development and supervised, behind-the-wheel training. Students learn theories of managing fatigue and handling emergency situations, conducting thorough pre-trip inspections and operating safely on varying grades.
Meanwhile, California — like the rest of the nation — needs new drivers to join the trucking profession. Trucking is a skilled career, and the industry opportunities provide eager Americans with professional mobility and earning potential. Trucking moves the goods that power our ports, feed our communities and sustain our economy.
But addressing labor shortages can never come at the expense of public safety. Cutting corners to move drivers through the system faster does not solve the problem — it creates a much larger one.
Every Californian deserves to know that the truck in the next lane is driven by someone who earned that responsibility through legitimate, high-quality training.
We must fully enforce entry-level driver training standards, ramp up compliance audits and shut down fraudulent entities. California should be an active partner by sharing data, investigating suspicious providers and ensuring that every commercial driver’s license is backed by rigorous training and legitimate documentation.
David Bither is vice president of Advanced Career Institute, a trade school offering commercial driver’s license and other professional training programs in Visalia, Bakersfield, Fresno and Merced, Calif. and Las Vegas, Nev. He is a member of the Commercial Vehicle Training Association’s Board of Directors.
This story was originally published February 7, 2026 at 5:00 AM.