Mexico Trucker Online

Alabama State Troopers are enhancing revenue in that state using the vague provisions of FMCSA Regulation 391.11 (b)(2), the controversial rule requiring CDL holders to be conversant in English

This rule leaves it up to the individual officer or inspector to determine, in his mind, what is “sufficient”.

This can be open to abuse and a persons personal prejudice due to the vague nature of the regulation.

FMCSA Regulation 391.11 (b)(2) 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

The question that begs to be answered in this case is, did the trooper expect this driver to speak perfect Oxford (Al) english? Perhaps so.

Manuel Castillo was driving a truck through Alabama hauling onions and left with a $500 ticket for something he didn’t think he was doing: speaking English poorly.

Castillo, who was stopped on his way back to California, said he knows federal law requires him to be able to converse in English with an officer but he thought his language skills were good enough to avoid a ticket.

An Alabama state trooper thought Castillo, 50, couldn’t speak English well enough to drive an 18-wheeler when he was headed back to California from picking up onions in Glennville, Ga. A driver for 20 years, Castillo was stopped in west Alabama for a routine inspection.

Castillo, who says he speaks English at roughly a third-grade level, said he understood when the trooper asked him where he was heading and to see his commercial driver’s license and registration. He said he responded in English, though he speaks with an accent.

So Mr Castillo understood what was asked of him, and responded to the Troopers questions appropriately. So where is the problem.

Castillo wasn’t speeding, and the inspection and computer check turned up no offenses, so he was surprised to get a ticket for being a “non-English speaking driver.”

“I had heard that Congress had passed that law, so I knew people were getting tickets,” he said in an interview in Spanish. “But it didn’t seem fair to me because I was communicating fine with him. I don’t know a lot of things, but when it comes to my work I understand everything people say to me.”

And this, like many Mexican, and Mexican American drivers, is the heart of the matter. They know their jobs, they can communicate as they need to, so that should be that.

Castillo, a permanent legal US resident lives in a small farming community near Fresno California.

The Huffington Post reported on this incident and the efforts of the Feds to tighten the rules on English speaking drivers. What needs to be tightened or defined, is exactly what is “English Proficiency”.

In our mind, if you can answer the questions asked, understand what is being asked and comply,then you have sufficient knowledge to meet the requirements of 391.11 (b)(2). Accented speech should not be an issue.

I know with my limited spanish, I am able to travel, converse and function in Mexico and on the roads and highways. No reason why a person of Mexican heritage cannot do the same. Especially a 50 year old man who has driven in the US for more than 20 years.

Could it be, considering the history of the Old South and Alabama, that there is something more nefarious at work here? Methinks it is possible.

As a good friend of mine, who happens to be a misguided OOIDA member until his membership expires remarked when told of this. “That’s pretty fucking lame! Sounds like something would happen in a hick town in south Arkansas!”

Well said!