Transportation Department says more than 550 driving schools must close over safety failures

Source: PBS News/AP

Feb 18, 2026 4:57 PM EST


More than 550 commercial driving schools in the U.S. that train truckers and bus drivers must close after investigators found they employed unqualified instructors, failed to adequately test students and had other safety issues, the federal Transportation Department announced Wednesday.

The move marks the Transportation Department's latest effort to improve safety in the trucking industry. And unlike its previous actions last fall to decertify up to 7,500 schools that included many defunct operations, this latest step is focused on what it deemed were active schools with significant shortcomings that inspectors identified in 1,426 site visits.

The department has been aggressively going after states that handed out commercial driver's licenses to immigrants who shouldn't have qualified for them ever since a fatal crash in August. A truck driver that Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says was not authorized to be in the U.S. made an illegal U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. Other fatal crashes since then, including one in Indiana earlier this month that killed four, have only added to the concerns.

Duffy said 448 schools that failed to meet basic safety standards. Inspectors found shortcomings such as employing unqualified instructors, failing to test students' skills or teach them how to handle hazardous materials and using the wrong equipment to teach drivers. Another 109 schools removed themselves from the registry of schools when they learned that inspectors were planning to visit.

Read more: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/transportation-department-says-more-than-550-driving-schools-must-close-over-safety-failures