The number of English language proficiency violations for commercial drivers in Illinois year-to-date has nearly eclipsed last year’s totals with nearly 1 in 5 having CDL’s coming from the state of Illinois.
Since guidance was incorporated into the North American Standard Out-of-Service criteria in June, Illinois State Police tell The Center Square that 221 citations were issued for violating English Language Proficiency assessments.
A spokesperson said “every ISP officer conducting a commercial motor vehicle inspection initiates the inspection in English. If there is an indication the driver may not understand the inspector’s instructions, the inspector then conducts an English Language Proficiency (ELP) assessment.”
Year to date, about 550 drivers were cited for not understanding English. That’s just shy of totals for all of 2024. In 2023, there were 385. So far this year, 18% of those citations are given to in-state CDL holders.
“The vast majority of citations are given to out-of-state CDL holders,” the ISP spokesperson said.
State Rep. Adam Niemerg, R-Dieterich, reacted to nearly 1 in 5 citations going to Illinois CDL holders.
“So we need to solve the problem in the state of Illinois, the federal government, other states need to solve the problem within their states,” Niemerg told The Center Square. “But it really does scare me.”
ISP said it could not accommodate The Center Square’s request to ride along with an enforcement officer to observe the frequency of such citations.
Hellbound and Down 