WASHINGTON — On March 12 the Small Business in Transportation Coalition (SBTC) board voted to propose to Congress a new CDL English language proficiency bill, “Standards Affirming Fluency in English (SAFE) Motor Carrier Act of 2025.”
The proposed bill has been re-named “Connor’s Law” in honor of late Connor Dzion who was killed in an accident caused by a distracted truck driver who also could not read English.
In a social media post the SBTC said:
“..the family of the late Connor Dzion authorized the SBTC to refer to our proposed “Standards Affirming Fluency in English (SAFE) Motor Carrier Act of 2025” (CDL English proficiency bill) as CONNOR’S LAW in his memory. Connor was tragically killed by a distracted truck driver in 2017 who could not read police signs in English that said “Slow Down. Accident ahead.” FMSCA directed law enforcement not to put unqualified Non-English-Speaking drivers out-of-service in 2016. That has to end. With Congress’ support, it will.”
Remembering Connor
A Florida jury ruled in 2021 that two trucking companies were complicit in the 2017 death of Dzion, an 18-year-old honor student, awarding the family a total of $1 billion in damages.
The family’s attorney, Curry Pajcic described the Dzion family’s experience as a “nightmare” that began about 9 p.m. on Labor Day 2017, while Dzion was stopped on Interstate 95 near Jacksonville, Florida. An 18-wheeler driven by Russell Rogatenko of AJD Business Services Inc. had crashed into another vehicle and caught fire, halting traffic.
While Connor Dzion sat in his car waiting for the wreck to be cleared, a rig driven by Kahkashan Carrier Inc.’s Yadwinder Sangha of Canada slammed into a parked line of cars behind the initial wreck, pancaking Dzion’s sedan and causing his head to be crushed between Sangha’s grill and the car in front of him.
Pajcic said Sangha was traveling with the cruise control at 70 mph, and the truck’s on-board data recorder showed he did not attempt to brake until one second before the fatal crash. Pajcic said Sangha was looking at his phone instead of the road when he “steamrolled” into Dzion’s car.
Sangha also reportedly could not read English, so the flashing electronic signs that were put up miles before the standstill, warning drivers to be prepared to stop, were not understood.
ELP Proficiency
Part of the bill relates to proficiency in English. That section of the bill reads:
“The states (shall be required) to test for English proficiency during Commercial Driver License (CDL) knowledge testing to confirm drivers of commercial motor vehicles (CMV) can read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records. This requirement shall not be waived by the Secretary and the Secretary shall require department enforcement personnel and the states to place out of service any CMV driver found to not be able to read or speak English while operating a CMV.”
Official Language
President Donald Trump signed an executive order making English the official language in the U.S. on March 1. Since then, the SBTC has been vocal about the lack of enforcement of a requirement that commercial drivers have a minimum proficiency in English.
In a March 2 email to Larry Minor, the FMSCA associate administrator for policy, SBTC president James Lamb stated: “If the agency’s policy is still to not place truck drivers who do not speak or read English out-of-service in accordance with the Department’s motor carrier safety regulations on qualifications to drive, we request you please change the policy back to placing such drivers out-of-service in the interest of public safety.”
Minor acknowledged receipt of Lamb’s email on March 3, but made no comment.
SBTC Threatens Litigation
On March 19 the SBTC threatened litigation against the Federal Motor Carrier Association (FMSCA) regarding enforcement of English Language Proficiency (ELP) Driver Qualifications regulations.
FMSCA Guidelines
According to FMCSA guidelines, motor carriers are required to ensure that commercial drivers can “speak and read English satisfactorily to converse with the general public, understand traffic signs and signals, respond to official questions and make legible entries on reports and records.”
In a June 16 FMSCA memorandum, FMSCA removed the requirement to place drivers out of service for English Language Proficiency (ELP) violations and changed the industry’s standard for determining non-compliance with the ELP requirements.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
I SUPPORT CONNOR’S LAW. If you can’t read warning signs in English on public roads in the USA, then you should not be allowed to have a regular driver’s license, nonetheless, especially, a CDL. This is a major problem for me personally because every day I think I’m going to watch the news or hear from other friends that my vehicles are being totaled, property is being destroyed and lives may be lost by drivers that my Russian husband (whom I am in the middle of divorcing), has allowed and still allows non-English speaking drivers to drive our tractor trailers and personal vehicles without my permission. While working with KavKaz Express (also operating as Global Transportation, also known in past as AMA Logistics and also known in past as Link Logistics), my husband had flown people in from other countries who have never driven a car before and start to drive tractor trailers for the owner of these companies. I have experienced 18 vehicle losses to date that I know of so far and I am in the middle of asking the Orange County Court to literally stop my spouse from allowing anyone other than us to drive them. Because he puts our property in other people’s names it is hard to keep up with all of them. However, I was able to learn of a driver Arman Umbetov, who had the same name as one of my husbands’ driver’s who had unfortunately killed a motorcyclist named Michael Charles Anco in Indiana in 2018. Who’s fault was it? I don’t know because I wasn’t there, but on August 25, 2018 KavKaz Express asked us to sign a contract to check our brakes 4x a year soon after this happened. This law is very important and I hope Congress will make the FMCSA enforce it.
Section 391.11 (2) states as follows. Can read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries and to make entries on reports and records. All these states need to tell the CVSA to shove it. We can put the blame on them for dropping the enforcement of 391.11 (2). Their words were it’s not fair to the foreign drivers. That’s total B.S. and making excuses
It wouldn’t have mattered in this case as the the driver was from Canada. The US allows cross border trucking with no requirements other than ensuring they have a drivers license from their home country.