MAGA fans are rejoicing on social media in favor of President Donald Trump’s plan to sign an executive order requiring commercial truck drivers to speak English.
Breitbart News reported that Trump would sign the order Monday evening because “President Trump believes that English is a non-negotiable safety requirement for professional drivers.” Last month, Trump designated English as “the official language of the United States.”
“This is such a big deal! So grateful for this, the roads will be much safer. Like many, I have seen many accidents or near accidents from unqualified drivers,” posted @coffeegirlvegas.
That’ll surely fix our surplus of truck drivers! /s
Good news! With the tarriffs throwing cold water on freight all across the US, we won’t need as many truck drivers!
…I really wish I was joking, but the fiance is OTR and freight has already slowed for him. Here’s an article from February that talks about how it was already slower than expected.
Ouch. Things are about to get real harsh before they get worse. I hope you are prepared.
It’s been speculated that Trump is doing this to prepare for the drop in cargo transport in the next few days. Me, I have doubts because nothing that Trump has said or done so far makes me believe that he or his sycophants are intellectually capable of that kind of rational planning. What do you think?
He has no goddamned clue what he’s doing. Whoever is speculating that is welcome to point to even one time where Trump prepared to keep people from economic harm in such a fashion, but I’ve only ever seen him walk things back, not actually insulate someone from harm.
Won’t this disqualify half his illiterate base
to be fair it’s about SPEAKING english, not READING english…
Word history!
1784, a colloquial American English alteration of darnation (itself a minced oath in place of damnation), influenced by tarnal (1790), a mild profanity, clipped from phrase by the Eternal (God), for which see eternal.
Neat … never did think about where the word ‘tarnation’ came from … heard it many times and just thought it was a made up nonsense word … never thought it had an actual history like that. Thanks!
okay, you’ve got to check out RobWords and Words Unraveled. i’m not usually one to plug youtube channels, but i think you’d really like them. i suggest you check out words unraveled first - just because it’s a lot of fun and jess (his co-host) adds a lot and makes him blush.
You are a monster … I spend hours watching furniture and small engine restoration videos … documentaries and history … now you’ve given me a new branch of content to watch.
I can both simultaneously thank you and curse for this information. Regardless, I’m happy to have met you.
The point stands
i don’t see why you might think i disagree ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Seems more and more like every headline could be: Senile Old Man Yells at the Sky*.
*with the authority of the US government.
Literally no trumpees anywhere can tell you their top three works of literature.
This is fact.
Unless it’s the old testament, the new testament, and the headlines of faux news
That’s informational text, not literature.
My severely undereducated state rep trumpee Angela Rigas replied to me that her top three works of literature are the bible, constitution, and declaration of independence. She had no response when I told her those aren’t literature.
I was being sarcastic, because I know you’d get a lot of extremely similar answers.
Besides… the Bible is fiction
Fiction would count as literature. I’d say it goes in the self-help section next to the Tony Robbins cassette tape series.
This is just an excuse for ICE to pull people over. And since they’re a part of the executive branch, they care less about due process and laws.
Exactly.
Saying that quiet part out loud again. The obvious ingredient is racism
“This is such a big deal! So grateful for this, the roads will be much safer. Like many, I have seen many accidents or near accidents from unqualified drivers,” posted @coffeegirlvegas.
Oh yea? You and many others have witnessed many accidents that were due to a truck driver’s inability to speak English?
You dumb bitch.
Meanwhile how many accidents are caused by dumb bitches on their phones?
It’s already part of the federal commercial driver regulations too… so no. No they have not. The most they’ve seen is someone with a heavy accent and maybe broken English.
I’m willing to bet the most they’ve seen is some accidents involving trucks, with no knowledge of what happened or who was driving.
It’s already part of the federal commercial driver regulations too
If it is already part of the rules, what makes this EO a bad thing? Sounds like it’s just enforcing a status-quo that nobody had an issue with.
“Interpreters are prohibited during the administration of skills tests. Applicants must be able to understand and respond to verbal commands and instructions in English by a skills test examiner.” CDL Standards
What’s bad about performative actions in the form of executive orders applying rules to situations the president has clearly demonstrated he doesn’t understand?
If it is already part of the rules, what makes this EO a bad thing?
It’s a power grab by the executive that will be used to, for example, harass minorities driving on the street. If it’s already part of the rules then it doesn’t need an executive order.
From my personal experience the bigotry towards non white non male folks in the industry can be pretty extreme, so off the very top of my head I can think of several ways a bombastic EO could inflame that worse. Not to mention I’d like my government to focus on fixing shit instead of meaningless performative bullshit
Because this EO isn’t about speaking English for road safety. The same way locking trans people out of bathrooms isn’t about protecting women. Or how deporting green card holders and naturalised citizens isn’t about US Security.
There are so many examples of this from the last 100 days. The US is honestly a lost cause at this point.
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Being able to read English would be important, not so much speaking it.
Being able to identify traffic signs would be enough.
You don’t actually need to be able to read, just memorize what the writing on a dozen-or-so signs means.
So the party of small government is going to administer english tests to truck drivers? maybe create some kind of language registry with proficiency levels? sounds kinda woke
There was a video on ?imgur? in the past couple days, I didn’t know if it was real. Guy says he was a truck driver and had stopped at a weigh station. He said they asked if he could read and write English; he said yes. They gave him a piece of paper to read, which he did; they then told him to write those words down on another piece of paper, which was filled with identical words in various handwritings. He said he saw a bunch of people off to the side in handcuffs, and said that if you couldn’t speak or write English, you had to pay a $5000 “fine” on the spot, and that if you couldn’t pay, you were arrested on the spot and your driving license immediately suspended. There was some condition (I don’t remember what it was) where the trucking company might also have to pay a $10000 “fine”.
The comments discussion pointed out that, if they had had $5000 to pay the “fine”, it likely would’ve been taken in civil forfeiture. There was also a robust discussion on whether this was real or not, trying to find other sources, which were slim and primarily referenced questionable sources.
Running the entire economy via a central planning committee is exactly the sort of right-wing free market the GOP voters wanted. I guess? Up is down. The past is alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
There’s the double-think we’ve all come to know and love. Double plus good, party member
The party of states rights (in areas they’re losing federally) makes yet another federal commandment in areas they want to gain ground on
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I’m sorry, but the whole thing is ridiculous. Surely you are aware that there are countries (eg your neighbour to the north) that have more than one official language. As far as i know, only one city in Canada has bilingual signage, yet Canadians manage to drive safely all over the country without necessarily having proficiency in both languages. The european union has ??? languages and yet somehow manages to have safe roads. this is all part of trump’s pandering to the racist and xenophobic idiots who comprise his base.
I have to agree with @Wilco@lemm.ee, though the issue is not really while going down the road.
Language barriers become an issue at pickups, drop offs, truck stops, weigh stations and anywhere else where you might need to follow a precise set of oddball instructions.
So, nothing to do with road safety.
Commerical driving licenses already require English proficiency so this is a non-issue. Now ask yourself why this particular administration is trying to “solve” a non-issue via executive order and not an act of Congress. Hint: It’s a power grab that will be used to the detriment of minorities.
Ah yes, those unqualified drivers that are being hired as professional truck drivers. It’s their lack of English skills that are the problem.
How was their totally legitimate and law abiding employer supposed to know about their lack of ability or driving licence? They are the real victims here, being forced to hire them and all.
ah, there’s the old rub. how many of trucking companies are going to be held accountable for hiring them? i’d wager it’s just about as many farmers that get fucked for hiring lettuce pickers. oh yeah, how’s that lettuce picking going now?
So, they will arrest people for not obeying an executive order that, and IANAL, has no basis in law? How will they be identifying these drivers? What is the justification for pulling them over?
It does seem like an excuse to call ICE.
Combine with ignoring due process, and it looks like a way to get at immigrants.
No, they’ll just add it as a requirement to do any work with federal jobs or something.
The executive office in the us has so many levers of power it can pull that they don’t really need laws anymore.
If they’re brown, pull 'em over.
If you have to take off your sunglasses to understand their accent, arrest 'em
-From the official executive order.
So cops pulling people over for a Language check?
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This is already a Commercial Driver’s License requirement. What is the specific issue here?
“Interpreters are prohibited during the administration of skills tests. Applicants must be able to understand and respond to verbal commands and instructions in English by a skills test examiner.” CDL Standards
You don’t need to speak English to know turn left and stop.
You’re right. You just need to be able to read, write, and understand instructions. Wait that sounds like knowing the language
Just like reddit to downvote someone who actually knows what the fuck they’re talking about because it doesn’t sound right to you.
You’re being down voted by others. Mostly cause what you said is stupid
And yet I know more than you and am correct. Maybe because you are just guessing and don’t have actual first hand knowledge.
It is quite common to have CDL drivers that only speak Spanish whether or not they’re supposed to be able to speak English.
Can’t pull someone for “driving while brown”, but you can pull someone over for “driving while not speaking English, which I just concluded from you being brown”
The same people who said they would remove big government that tries to control everything and everyone
oh, they still want total control… but only of those deemed ‘unworthy’. the ‘big’ government they want to get rid of is only the bits that watch what they (the rich fucks and their companies) do and might enforce laws that they break.
Oof that will crash the trucking industry.
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Trucking is the quickest way to make $100k/year. It ain’t easy hours but demand for drivers is insanely high. My company at one point was offering $15k signing bonus for drivers.
I personally know at least a dozen that I work with daily at work that do not have any English fluency whatsoever.
Actually it’s helped my Spanish skills lol
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I dunno how they did it. They’re third party contract drivers.
But we do live in a very Spanish-speaking part of the country so it was probably as easy as finding a friendly enough bi-lingual examiner at the DMV.
It was going to mostly crash anyway, when the ships stop coming next week, due to the tariffs.
I keep on thinking of the mad tv skit with the woman who says she can’t understand people with accents.
