Two days ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation released a detailed account of everything it has done over the past year to — in their own words — "clean up the trucking industry." It's a long list. And for CDL-A OTR drivers who've been watching this industry get flooded with unqualified operators, fraud, and chameleon carriers for years, a lot of it is worth reading carefully.
Here's what actually happened, what's still in motion, and what it means for drivers on the road today.
20,000+ Unqualified Drivers Removed From Service
This is the headline number. Since June 2025, more than 20,000 truckers have been placed out of service for failing to meet basic requirements — including English language proficiency and valid working documents. Accounting Portal
That number is the direct result of a policy shift that started when Secretary Duffy issued new guidance in May 2025 to enforce English Language Proficiency standards, rescinding an Obama-era policy that had relaxed enforcement of ELP rules. English-only testing for drivers was officially reincorporated in June 2025, and FMCSA withheld $40 million from California in October 2025 for refusing to enforce the standard. California officially began enforcing ELP in January 2026. Accounting Portal
The English proficiency requirement isn't new — it's been in federal regulation for decades. A driver operating a commercial vehicle must be able to read highway signs, respond to official inquiries, and communicate with law enforcement. What changed is that the federal government started actually enforcing it.
For drivers who've had concerns about road safety on corridors where language barriers between drivers and inspectors were clearly a problem — this enforcement shift matters.
28,000 Illegally Issued CDLs Revoked
The non-domiciled CDL crackdown produced results that are hard to ignore. FMCSA finalized its rule in February 2026 to stop unqualified foreign drivers from obtaining a non-domiciled CDL. More than 28,000 illegally issued licenses have been successfully revoked nationwide. Accounting Portal
FMCSA mobilized 300+ investigators across all 50 states in December 2025 to audit approximately 1,500 training providers. More than 6,800 unqualified training providers were removed from the FMCSA registry in the past year. Accounting Portal
To put that number in context — that's nearly 7,000 CDL schools either eliminated or removed from the federal registry. Schools that were certifying drivers who hadn't earned it. Schools that existed on paper but had no equipment, no qualified instructors, and no real training happening. Gone.
The legal framework behind the non-domiciled CDL change is also being reinforced through legislation. Dalilah's Law — named after a victim of a crash involving an unvetted non-domiciled driver — is currently moving through Congress. If passed, it would make the CDL eligibility restrictions permanent law, require states to audit all existing foreign-domiciled licenses within one year and revoke those that don't qualify, and penalize non-compliant states with up to 12% of their federal highway funding. It would also require all CDL knowledge and skills tests to be administered only in English. Truckstop
The FMCSA rule is like a quick safety patch — it closes the biggest loophole now. Dalilah's Law is a full toolbox. It locks the changes into law and adds English rules, forcing states to clean up old mistakes and punishing companies that break them. Truckstop
The Speed Limiter Rule Is Dead
This one will get a reaction from a lot of drivers — and it's genuinely good news for the OTR community.
FMCSA and NHTSA withdrew the joint rulemaking proposing speed limiters on heavy vehicles, concluding that it had become a safety hazard when drivers were forced to go slower than the flow of traffic. Accounting Portal
The speed limiter mandate had been one of the most contested proposed rules in trucking for years. The argument from safety advocates was that capping commercial vehicle speeds would reduce accident severity. The argument from drivers — backed by real-world data from states and countries where speed differential between trucks and passenger vehicles is highest — was that forcing trucks to travel significantly slower than surrounding traffic creates dangerous speed differential situations, especially on interstate highways.
The withdrawal of the proposal is an acknowledgment that the safety case wasn't as clean as the rule's proponents claimed. For drivers who've been frustrated by the debate, it's a win.
HOS Pilot Programs Are Underway — And Could Change Your Daily Clock
This is the change that could have the most practical impact on how OTR drivers manage their days — and it's still in the testing phase.
FMCSA introduced two pilot programs to study whether giving drivers more control over their own schedules will increase safety and reduce fatigue: the Flexible Sleeper Berth program, which allows drivers to split their 10-hour off-duty period in new ways, and the Split Duty Period program, which allows drivers to pause their 14-hour on-duty clock for 30 minutes to 3 hours. Accounting Portal
The Split Duty Period pilot is particularly significant. Currently, the 14-hour window is an unrelenting clock — once it starts, it runs regardless of whether you're stuck in traffic, waiting at a dock, or sitting in a rest area. The pilot tests whether allowing drivers to pause that clock for a mid-shift rest actually reduces fatigue-related incidents compared to the current structure.
Approximately 500 CDL drivers are currently participating in both pilot programs. Results will inform potential future rulemaking. ATBS
If the data supports the safety case — and the logic behind it is sound — these pilots could lead to rule changes that give experienced OTR drivers meaningfully more flexibility in how they structure their workday without sacrificing compliance. That's worth watching.
Dispatch Pressure Protection — Now With Official Guidance
One of the less-publicized but genuinely important changes from the past year is this: FMCSA prohibits motor carriers, shippers, receivers, and brokers from pressuring drivers to violate federal safety regulations, and in 2026 issued official guidance to help drivers navigate these issues. Accounting Portal
This isn't a new rule — the coercion prohibition has existed since 2016. What's new is the official guidance giving drivers a clearer framework for how to document and report pressure from carriers, shippers, or brokers to run beyond their hours, skip required inspections, or otherwise violate safety regulations.
For drivers who've been in situations where dispatch is pushing them past their clock or a shipper is threatening to charge detention fees unless a load moves illegally — this guidance creates a documented process for pushing back with federal backing.
DataQs Got an Upgrade
In April 2026, FMCSA rolled out an upgraded DataQs process to ensure fair, impartial, and timely due process for drivers correcting their safety records. Accounting Portal
DataQs is the system that allows drivers and carriers to challenge inaccurate inspection data, crash reports, or violation entries on their CSA record. The existing system had a reputation for being slow and opaque — corrections could take months, and the process wasn't always clear.
The upgraded system is supposed to make the challenge process faster and more transparent. For drivers with erroneous entries on their record that are affecting their ability to access better positions or higher pay, a more functional DataQs is a meaningful improvement. If you have contested violations sitting on your record that you haven't challenged, April 2026 is a good time to revisit it.
Truck Parking — Real Money Being Spent
This one doesn't get enough attention given how much it affects driver quality of life. FMCSA has invested more than $300 million in truck parking grants since April 2025. Accounting Portal
The truck parking shortage has been one of the persistent quality-of-life crises in OTR trucking for years — drivers burning HOS hours searching for legal parking, being forced to park illegally on ramps or in unauthorized areas because no legal spots exist, and carrying the stress of where they're going to stop into every run they make.
$300 million doesn't solve the national truck parking deficit overnight. But it represents a level of federal investment in driver quality of life that hasn't happened before. The grants are flowing to states and municipalities to expand legal truck parking capacity on high-demand corridors — and the projects funded in 2025 will begin showing up as actual parking spaces over the next 12–24 months.
What All of This Means Together
Read in isolation, each of these changes is a policy update. Read together, they tell a coherent story about the direction the industry is heading.
The driver pool is getting smaller and more qualified. The barriers to entry for unqualified operators are higher than they've been in a generation. The regulatory pressure on fraudulent carriers, ghost schools, and coercive dispatch operations is real and sustained. And the rules that affect how qualified drivers manage their time and safety are being reviewed — and in some cases improved — with actual driver input.
For CDL-A OTR drivers with clean records and legitimate experience, this is the environment you've been waiting for. The industry is being cleaned up from the bottom. The drivers who did things right — who earned their CDL, built a real record, and stayed compliant through a brutal freight recession — are the ones positioned to benefit as the cleanup continues.
The leverage is real. The question is whether you're with a carrier and in a role that lets you use it.
At OTR Express Group, we've been ahead of this curve the whole time — placing qualified CDL-A OTR drivers with vetted carriers that run clean operations. If you want to make sure your next move puts you in position to benefit from everything happening in this market right now, reach out.
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