Webinar Replay Video #98: English Language Proficiency & Medical Certification

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Steve Kessler: Good morning, everybody welcome to the INFINITI Fast Forward Webinar Series. Appreciate y’all joining us this morning.

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Steve Kessler: about 30 days ago we had a

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Steve Kessler: some webinar about El P. And medical certification, and we thought it’d be a great idea to kind of follow up 30 days later to see where we stand with all this.

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Steve Kessler: So, our guest this morning is Brandon Wiseman. He’s the owner and president of Truck, safe consulting and a partner with Childress Law.

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Steve Kessler: So, he’s going to give us kind of an update on what’s happened in the last 30 days. I also want to introduce you all to Mark Ray. Mark is our co-host here Mark’s joined us for most of our webinars.

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Steve Kessler: He’s a truck transportation, executive, certified director of safety, and is involved in a lot of consulting for trucking around the country, and before I give a formal introduction to Brandon, I just want to let you all know that you’re muted. So, if you want to communicate with us, jump in the chat and give us your comments or questions. You can also use the Q&A box if you want to pose a question.

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Steve Kessler: so why don’t you all jump into the chat and let us know who you are and where you’re from? Mark, you have any comments before I formally introduce Brandon.

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Mark Rhea: No, I’ve I think we always expect a little confusion when the

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Mark Rhea: Feds roll out a new program. But this one is not a disappointment. I think there is some confusion. I heard a little few war stories from a fleet down in Laredo, Texas.

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Mark Rhea: so, I’m interested to see and listen to Brandon’s observation of the 1st 30 days.

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Steve Kessler: Great.

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Steve Kessler: So, let me all introduce you formally to Brandon. Brandon. Wiseman, as I said, is the owner and president of Truck safe consulting. He’s also a partner with children’s law

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Steve Kessler: as a transportation attorney Brandon has assisted some of the nation’s leading motor carriers in developing and maintaining compliant and cutting-edge safety programs. He’s also represented carriers of all types and sizes before the FMCSA. On matters such as safety rating upgrades and civil penalty proceedings

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Steve Kessler: through his consulting company. Brandon now offers state-of-the-art compliance, resources, and regulatory training materials

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Steve Kessler: covering a wide range of safety related topics. Brandon’s also a regular speaker at industry events, and a contributor to industry publication, and has been a guest on our webinars a few times. So, Brandon, welcome this morning, thanks for joining us, and curious to hear about some updates on these ELPs and medical certification processes.

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Brandon Wiseman: Thanks, Steve, thanks Mark, thanks to the INFINITI team for having me, as always, always, great to join you, thanks to everybody who’s tuning in appreciate you taking some time out of your day to spend with us, to talk about a couple of different topics here that

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Brandon Wiseman: you know. I wish I could say, have gone swimming over the last 30 days. But unfortunately, that’s not the reality of the situation.

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Brandon Wiseman: Big debacle, in fact, when it comes to the med certification. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to spend today kind of looking back over the last 30 days. How these programs or changes to programs have rolled out

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Brandon Wiseman: some of the pain points that we have heard from many of our motor carrier clients and kind of where things stand with both programs, and some recommendations for what they are worth. And, as Steve said, if you have any questions

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Brandon Wiseman: for us, throw them in the Q. And A. Box or the chat box, and we’ll try and take them as we go. I think we should have plenty of time for questions on this one. So anyway, that’s kind of the

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Brandon Wiseman: that’s kind of the plan for today. We’ll start 1st with the medical certification changes we did. As Steve mentioned. We did a whole webinar on this last month. Very well, we attended Webinar, where we spent over an hour talking about exactly what changed. So, I’m not going to rehash all of that. But I will give some

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Brandon Wiseman: you know, 30,000-foot backdrop on this. So, we kind of understand what exactly happened. So, as many of you on the call will know hopefully. All of you.

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Brandon Wiseman: you know. Regulated

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Brandon Wiseman: commercial drivers are obviously required to be physically qualified to operate the vehicles, the commercial vehicles that we expect them to operate, and the process through which they get certified has gone through some changes over the years since 2014. These regulated drivers must be

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Brandon Wiseman: certified as physically fit, essentially by a medical examiner that is listed on the National Registry of Medical examiners. This is a database that FMCSA, it is set up for doctors and chiropractors and physicians, assistants. The types that perform these types of medical exams are to be listed on that registry, and those are the ones that perform the medical certifications for our population of regulated drivers.

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Brandon Wiseman: and then they do so. Since 2015, it’s kind of in a standardized way on standardized forms.

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Brandon Wiseman: These are commonly known as the Medical Examiner certificates, or med cards. For short, these are the things that we have become familiar with for the last decade.

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Brandon Wiseman: The little cards that drivers, you know, keep with them, and then give to us, as the motor carriers, to keep in their driver qualification files that all was supposed to have changed.

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Brandon Wiseman: June 23rd of 2026 at least for CDL drivers specifically for non CDL drivers. That process is not changing and will not change in the immediate future. But for CDL drivers, specifically the vision for how this certification process is supposed to work has been since 2015 to make it a fully electronic process whereby a CDL driver would go visit with the doctor.

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Brandon Wiseman: They would get certified by that doctor, and then the doctor would electronically transmit that certification up to the National Registry, and then the National Registry would transmit it to their state licensing agency to get associated with their driving record.

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Brandon Wiseman: And the whole idea with this was to cut down on fraud. We don’t want. We want to lessen the ways that drivers and carriers have found over the years to potentially falsify a med card. So, we wanted to eventually get to a system where we digitize it. And so that’s what

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Brandon Wiseman: the agency had proposed back in 2015 as the process going forward. But obviously that kind of process depends on the cooperation of many different stakeholders, including FMCSA. On the one hand, but also the state licensing agencies to be able to accept

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Brandon Wiseman: the electronic transmission of a CDL driver’s medical certifications, and also the, you know, hundreds of thousands.

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Brandon Wiseman: Maybe that’s too strong. Maybe tens of thousands of medical examiners throughout the United States to be able to process those results and transmit them electronically to the national registry. And it turns out it’s not all that easy of a thing to do to expect all of those it systems to play nicely with one another. And so the FMCSA. Has kicked this down the road for many years for a decade, in fact, but

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Brandon Wiseman: you know effective. June 23rd of 2026. So last month the FMCSA. Expected

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Brandon Wiseman: all those stakeholders to be ready for this process and to be able to start doing this electronic process. The process we had become familiar with during that interim decade was that the medical examiner would issue the CDL driver their Med. Card, their physical, you know, med card on paper, and then they would expect the driver to then take that to their state licensing agency

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Brandon Wiseman: physically, go to the DMV. And to have them associate it with their driving record and then motor carriers on the back end of that. That employee. That driver would then run would accept a copy temporarily of their physical med card, but then would eventually run a motor vehicle, report a Sid list check

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Brandon Wiseman: to make sure that the new medical certification did, in fact, get associated with that driver’s license. That’s the process we’ve been living with for many years.

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Brandon Wiseman: but that was supposed to change June 23rd

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Brandon Wiseman: and the way it was supposed to change was. So, here’s a kind of look. We showed this on the 1st webinar we did, but it’s worth reiterating here. This is the old process that we have been following for the last 10 years compared to the new process. Again, this is for CDL drivers, specifically.

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Brandon Wiseman: So that old process is the one I just described the new process that was supposed to take effect, and did to some extent, which I’ll get into here in a minute. But the new process is that the medical examiner who conducts the examination of that CDL driver once they finish the examination, they upload digitally the results to the National Registry of medical examiners by the end of the next calendar day.

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Brandon Wiseman: and then the National Registry is supposed to promptly alert that Driver’s State licensing agency, that there is new medical certification available for that driver.

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Brandon Wiseman: And then that State licensing agency is supposed to update that CDL driver’s record by the next business day from when they get that alert to reflect that new medical certification status.

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Brandon Wiseman: and then on the back end, the carrier that employs that driver, then, is supposed to run a new motor vehicle report to verify that that medical certification information has indeed been associated with that driver’s license, and that

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Brandon Wiseman: MVR. That the motor carrier runs is now the proof that that CDL. The driver is medically qualified, whereas historically, for the last 10 years the proof has been primarily that physical Med. Card. Now, it is just the driver’s electronic driving record. That is that proof, in other words, under this new process.

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Brandon Wiseman: the physical Med card that that CDL driver may have in their possession is no longer valid proof of that driver’s certification. It is only the driver’s driving record.

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Brandon Wiseman: and, in fact, the way that this was supposed to work is that the FMCSA. We weren’t even expecting medical examiners to even issue physical med cards anymore. Effective. June 23rd To CDL. Drivers. They noted in their guidance to medical examiners that you can voluntarily if you want to, and if a driver requests it, but you don’t have to.

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Brandon Wiseman: and that was kind of just highlighting the fact that even if a driver happens to have the physical Med card, that’s not, it’s worth nothing to them, because that’s not valid proof of their medical certification. It’s only the driver’s driving record.

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Brandon Wiseman: Well, June 23rd, 2026, came and went, and you know, as we kind of forecasted

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Brandon Wiseman: during our last webinar, and, as was expected, unfortunately, things did not go so well and are continuing to not go so well. There have been many problems with the rollout of this change. The 1st hint at a problem that we had was that the FMCSA. It has been published on its national registry website.

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Brandon Wiseman: the States that are not ready for this change that aren’t able to process or to take in these electronic transmissions from the National Registry and looked at it yesterday

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Brandon Wiseman: as of yesterday. There are still 12 states

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Brandon Wiseman: that are listed on that list of states that cannot electronically process these medical exams that was originally 14 when they launched this, and on June 23rd 2 additional States have become compliant. But there are still 12 states that aren’t ready for this. I’ve got them listed here on this slide.

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Brandon Wiseman: They are California, Alaska, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Iowa, Louisiana, Kentucky, Florida, New York, New Jersey Vermont, and New Hampshire. Those are the states that cannot yet process these electronic transmissions. So the 1st thing that the FMCSA. Had to do in recognition of the fact that those States weren’t ready is to put out interim guidance which they published on

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Brandon Wiseman: on their website.

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Brandon Wiseman: Let’s see if I’ve got that interim guidance here. I don’t think I do. Okay, so that guidance is available on their national registry website. But it essentially instructed

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Brandon Wiseman: carriers and CDL drivers who are domiciled in those states

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Brandon Wiseman: that if you’re a CDL driver domiciled in one of those states, you’re still going to have to follow that old process when you get medically certified. You’re still going to have to get a physical copy of your Med. Card from your medical examiner and physically take it over to your state licensing agency to get associated with your license. So that is still the process in place for those 12 States for drivers. CDL drivers are domiciled in those States, and it will continue to be that way until the States, those states are able to

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Brandon Wiseman: electronically receive the medical certifications from the National registry. So that’s my 1st tip for you. If you’ve got drivers domiciled in those States, you need to continue to watch that FMCSA website that they’ve set up to list out those States, you know, periodically check it, maybe every week or so to see if the state that you’re interested in ever comes off that list, because once they do come off the list.

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Brandon Wiseman: Then you’re going to be expected to follow the new process, which is to, you know, electronically transmit the data from the medical Examiner to the licensing agency, and then run the MVR. Proof of that driver’s qualifications. I have some concerns that if you’re not watching that closely, and suddenly one of those States flips over to the new process, and you have still been relying on the physical Med card from your driver. Well, you know FMCSA. Will potentially tell you.

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Brandon Wiseman: Too bad, so sad! You should have been watching this. So that’s my concern. So you need to be closely watching if you get drivers domiciled in those States, so that was the 1st issue.

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Brandon Wiseman: Well, and that’s the issue. That really kind of

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Brandon Wiseman: kind of spurred this next action, but also anecdotally. I know that on June 23rd I’ve mentioned this in a few other presentations that I’ve given, but I literally received 4 calls on June 23rd from 4 separate medical examiners that told me they had no idea that this change had taken effect, and they were wanting some information about it on the date that they were supposed to start the new process.

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Brandon Wiseman: which told me that FMCSA. Didn’t do a great job of getting this word out to the medical examiners. Either that

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Brandon Wiseman: or those medical examiners aren’t doing a great job of watching the channels through which they get information from FMCSA. And again, this isn’t like something. This isn’t something that just sprung up on them. This has been a change in the work for 10 years, so I’m not all that sympathetic to it, but

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Brandon Wiseman: regardless, and the fact that they weren’t ready for it, and the States aren’t ready for it is putting many motor carriers and their drivers in a tough position. So yeah, it’s not a great situation for anybody involved.

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Brandon Wiseman: but to account for those problems, not only the States not being ready, but also the medical examiners not being ready, the FMCSA. Came out with a temporary waiver. And this is the document I’m showing on screen here. This was issued on July 14th

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Brandon Wiseman: effective that day through October 12.th Here’s essentially what the waiver says. The waiver says that through October 12th of 2026 FM. For its part, FMCSA. Is not going to take any enforcement action essentially against motor carriers and CDL drivers that continue to

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Brandon Wiseman: relies on the old process of documenting the driver’s physical qualification medical certification. So, in other words, that old process, just a reminder because some folks didn’t even

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Brandon Wiseman: understand the old process. Unfortunately, I encountered too many carriers that weren’t even following the old process. But here’s the old process.

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Brandon Wiseman: because it’s relevant to this new waiver.

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Brandon Wiseman: That old process is, you can accept that CDL driver’s physical Med card as proof of their physical qualifications and put it in their DQ file. But you can only do that for a period of 15 days from the date of that Med. Card.

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Brandon Wiseman: And so, what I have found over the last 10 years. It is that a lot of motor carriers were just accepting the physical Med card, and that was it. They were stuffing it away in the driver’s DQ File and saying, well, they must be good. They’ve got the physical Med card. But even for the last 10 years that has not been enough under the regulations. The regulations said that you can accept that physical Med card for 15 days.

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Brandon Wiseman: and then, after 15 days have elapsed from the date of the med card. You were supposed to have run a new motor vehicle report

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Brandon Wiseman: to get proof that the driver did, in fact, do what they were supposed to do which was, go get it associated with their driving record. And then that MVR. That you ran we called these 15-day MVRs. Go locally, that MVR. That you would run would then become the proof of the driver’s physical certification. It would take it would take precedent over the physical med card.

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Brandon Wiseman: So that’s the process that FMCSA. It is said that you, as motor carriers that employ CDL drivers, can continue to follow now through October 12th in other words, you’re not going to get. You shouldn’t get written up in an audit for violations

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Brandon Wiseman: if you are continuing to follow that process regardless of what state you’re domiciled in. This is a nationwide waiver that’s available to drivers and CDL drivers in any state. So that’s the 1st thing I’ll point out. But it is essentially saying, you know, even if you’re a state in a state that has moved to the fully electronic process. If for some reason

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Brandon Wiseman: your driver still gets their hands on a physical Med card, you are still entitled to rely on that for 15 up to 15 days, as proof of their physical qualification status, and then, if you have an MVR. After those 15 days have elapsed, you’re good to go. So that’s what the waiver does now with that said.

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Brandon Wiseman: is it a good idea to rely on this waiver. If you are in states that have already moved to the electronic process, I would say, no, I would say you need to follow the new process and try and get an MVR. In the file as quickly as possible. Number One. You may. Your drivers may be going to a medical examiner that doesn’t even issue physical Med cards anymore. And again, they’re not.

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Brandon Wiseman: There’s no regulation that says they must. Under this new process. The FMCSA. Has recommended that they do so and has even kind of reiterated that in this waiver, but it may be the case that your driver’s not able to even get their hands on a physical med card. So, the point is.

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Brandon Wiseman: my advice to my clients is that if you’ve got drivers domiciled in the States that have moved, moved to the electronic process. Go with that process and make sure you quickly run an MVR. After they get the new Med card or new medical certification as proof that they are now physically qualified to operate

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Brandon Wiseman: for the States. The 12 States that are currently not able to process these electronically. Well, then, you’re going to have to follow the old process and just take comfort in the fact that the FMCSA is recognizing that you’re following the old process, and you’ve got some temporary relief here, and I think what the agency is doing or is hoping is banking on is that those 12 states will get their act together, and we’ll be able to

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Brandon Wiseman: electronically process these results by October. And so that’s when they have set the end date for this temporary waiver. October 12th, 2026.

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Brandon Wiseman: They may very well extend that if we get to that point, but that’s kind of the date that we have that we’re working with

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Brandon Wiseman: for right now. So

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Brandon Wiseman: yeah, just to drive it home here. A temporary waiver valid through October 12.th

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Brandon Wiseman: Carriers and CDL. Drivers can continue to rely on the physical med cards as proof of physical qualifications, but only 15 days after that Med Card was issued, and then, after those 15 days expire, you better have the MVR. In their file, showing that that medical certification has indeed been uploaded to their driving record.

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Brandon Wiseman: Here are some other recommendations that I’m giving to all my clients. These are based on some things that I’m seeing play out in real time for many of our clients. You need to make sure your CDL drivers start this process even earlier than they would have normally started it in the past.

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Brandon Wiseman: It was always a good idea to not wait till the last minute, obviously to get a new medical certification, but now even more so than ever. I recommend you start the process at least a couple of weeks, if not 3 or 4 weeks, in advance of their expiration. Date of their current Med card, so that you can account for these potential problems with the transmission of the results to the national registry and then down to the State Licensing Agency.

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Brandon Wiseman: I also recommend that you have your CDL drivers call ahead to the clinic that they are planning to go to get the medical certification and understand what process they are following? Are they going to be able to accommodate the electronic process, as I found out by getting those calls from the medical examiners. I don’t think we can just trust

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Brandon Wiseman: that all the medical examiners, even if they are in a state that is accepting the results that the medical examiners are going to be following this process.

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Brandon Wiseman: even though they should be

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Brandon Wiseman: so, it’s worth a call ahead of time, so that your CDL driver doesn’t waste their time showing up at a clinic that isn’t able to electronically transmit the results. So call ahead, make sure they’re following the electronic process and go from there and then. Also, this didn’t make it on the slide. But another recommendation that the FMCSA. Has made, and that I will continue to make is that when a CDL driver goes in for their physical exam.

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Brandon Wiseman: have them make sure they take a copy of their CDL with them, and then preferably leave a copy of that CDL with the medical examiner so that the medical examiner can double check, that they input the driver’s information correctly into the system, namely, their CDL. Number.

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Brandon Wiseman: because what we are seeing is some errors in transmission. The driver or the medical examiner mis transcribes the driver’s CDL. Number. And then, if they don’t have the CDL number written down correctly, then when they go to upload that

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Brandon Wiseman: result electronically to the National Registry, it’s not going to work because they have the wrong number, and if they if the driver didn’t leave with them the copy of the CDL, then they’re going to have to try and get in contact with that driver, and then it’s just going to lead to further delays. So, I recommend they take a copy of the CDL. With them.

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Brandon Wiseman: and then, lastly, under the current state of affairs we are recommending, and FMCSA. It is now recommended that drivers continue to request a physical copy of their Med. Card, even though the medical examiners are not required to give them, and even though eventually those will no longer be proof of the driver’s physical qualifications. So, it’s good practice for the time being to continue to have the CDL drivers request a physical copy of their med cards

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Brandon Wiseman: all right. That was that was the medical certification, the status of the medical certification changes that that?

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, it was a bit of a debacle there. So, I saw several questions come through. Let’s take some of those now before I transition into English language proficiency. Steve, you want to kind of moderate some of these questions for me.

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Steve Kessler: Sure.

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Steve Kessler: Let me see, there was one here in particular that I wanted you to touch on.

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Steve Kessler: Says, can anyone speak to the CVSA. Out of service. Criteria for drivers regarding medically qualified. That was updated April 2026. Here in North Carolina. We’ve had drivers who renewed on June 6, 2026, to be exact, that is still not uploaded to their MVR.

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Steve Kessler: They have now received notification of pending downgrade of their CDL, if not medically qualified.

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Steve Kessler: Of course, then there’s this liability, litigation aspect. If involved in a crash.

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Steve Kessler: This debacle is causing undue stress to drivers, carriers, as well as expense. Running MVRs.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, a lot to unpack there. Did they say, what state they were in, Steve? I didn’t hear it. If.

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Steve Kessler: North Carolina.

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Mark Rhea: North Carolina.

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Brandon Wiseman: So. North Carolina is one of the States that supposedly transitioned to, but they were one of the later States to transition. As I recall. I think they were originally one of the 14 States that weren’t ready, as of June 23rd but I think they came off shortly thereafter. So, it’s not that surprising to me frankly that you would be having a driver in North Carolina that’s having some trouble getting the result uploaded. They’re probably caught up right in that period

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Brandon Wiseman: where North Carolina transitioned over to the new system. So, to answer your 1st question, CVSA, and what roadside enforcement is doing? I don’t know.

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Brandon Wiseman: I’m not part of CVSA personally, so I don’t know. I assume they have sent out some directives to law enforcement, but I don’t know that specifically, so, I don’t know what their current stance on it is. I don’t know what their current directives are to law enforcement roadside how to handle it. But I imagine that if that driver’s CDL. It is ultimately downgraded by North Carolina because North Carolina didn’t have their act together.

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Brandon Wiseman: then, when the officer pulls that driver over. They’re going to see that the driver doesn’t possess the CDL anymore, and they’re going to have to. You know the officer’s hands are tied in that situation. They are going to see a downgraded CDL. And they’re going to have to write them up for a CDL violation, and I fear that you, as the motor carrier and that driver, are going to have to fight that on the back end through DataQs, appeal or something to that effect. I worry that that’s going to be the likely outcome unless these States get their act together.

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Steve Kessler: Here’s another one, Brandon said. Some MVR. Are saying certified no dates, no doctor’s info. How would we know that medical certification was updated by DMV. Unless it’s downgraded.

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Brandon Wiseman: Did that person say? What state they were in.

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Steve Kessler: They did not.

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Brandon Wiseman: I’ve heard.

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Steve Kessler: Maybe like, maybe you can.

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Brandon Wiseman: Heard that.

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Steve Kessler: Let us know.

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Brandon Wiseman: I’ve heard that being an issue in Arizona, for some reason, specifically that for some reason.

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Brandon Wiseman: Arizona, when it reports data on MVRs isn’t reporting the doctor information which is, in my view, not compliant with what the FMCSA. Requires.

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Steve Kessler: Says it’s Illinois.

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Brandon Wiseman: Oh, Illinois! I haven’t heard of that.

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Steve Kessler: Drivers. I’m sorry.

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Brandon Wiseman: Oh, Arkansas drivers! I haven’t heard of that specifically being an issue with Arkansas, MVR. So that seems odd to me. And I’m assuming this is a CDL driver, because if it’s a non CDL driver you wouldn’t have that information anyway. Remember, the process isn’t changing.

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Brandon Wiseman: But for CDL drivers, yeah, you’re going to have to get to the bottom of that. I don’t know why Arkansas wouldn’t be reporting that information. It’s concerning to me that if they don’t have, if they’re only certified, and they’re not giving you dates and doctors’ information that seems incorrect to me, and that seems like a violation of what the FMCSA. Requires in their regulations. So yeah, unfortunately, you’re going to have to reach out to the State there, or whoever your MVR.

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Brandon Wiseman: Is, and see if you can get some information from them

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Brandon Wiseman: as to why you’re not seeing that data come through, because I would have some heartburn like you do, relying on an MVR. That just says certified and doesn’t give you any information beyond that.

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Steve Kessler: Yep.

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Steve Kessler: here’s a question from Amber, so we have a driver who states his doctor has sent his medical card to the National Registry twice.

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Steve Kessler: but it’s still not showing up on his MVR. And it’s been almost a month.

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Steve Kessler: Is there something we can do on our end to move the process along.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, we kind of. There are steps that the FMCSA. Expects you to follow. We mentioned these on the 1st webinar, but they’re also laid out. And if you go to the FMCSA’s National Registry Learning Center website, if you just Google FMCSA

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Brandon Wiseman: National Registry learning site, you’ll find the website where they’ve got some resources as to what you can do. The steps you could take

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Brandon Wiseman: to when you encounter a situation like this. Unfortunately, they’re not all that satisfied with the response. Unfortunately, it’s really the only thing you can do. The 1st thing they’re going to recommend to you is that you reach out to the medical examiner and figure out how they transmitted the results. If they did transmit the results. If you said this has gone on for a month. Then maybe this happened before they pulled the

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Brandon Wiseman: trigger on the changes. I don’t know.

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Brandon Wiseman: But if they, if it was an issue in their transmission, that’s what you need to figure out. 1st of all, where is the root cause of the problem? Here? Was it a medical examiner problem? Then FMCSA. Will recommend. If you find out that the Medical Examiner did, in fact, transmit it to the National Registry, then your next call is to the State Licensing Agency.

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Brandon Wiseman: and trust me, I know the issues they’re getting in touch with somebody who knows what they’re talking about at these State licensing agencies. But FMCSA. Will tell you that’s your next call.

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Brandon Wiseman: Figure out why they aren’t processing the result. And then, if you can’t get it resolved through either of those channels, then FMCSA. Has set up an email address, a help desk for these national registry issues that you can email. I can tell you

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Brandon Wiseman: the lead time on getting responses to that email are not great. I’ve had some carriers waiting several weeks to get a response back.

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Brandon Wiseman: But

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Brandon Wiseman: Those are your options right now. Not great options. But that’s what’s available to you.

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Brandon Wiseman: And that email address is listed on that website I mentioned.

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Steve Kessler: There’s another question here about the medical examiners who may have a confusion be confused between the next calendar day versus next business day.

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Brandon Wiseman: Wouldn’t surprise me if they’re confused about it. But yeah, the regulation is clear, and the guidance sent out to medical examiners specifically that they have a calendar day

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Brandon Wiseman: to upload the results to the national registry, whereas the State licensing agencies, they have a business day to get the results posted to the driver’s driving record. Obviously, a lot of those DMVs aren’t open on the weekends. So that’s why the FMCSA. I suppose they gave them a business day, but they only gave the medical examiners a calendar day. So, you know, that’s what it’s supposed to be.

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Steve Kessler: Okay.

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Steve Kessler: I noticed that. You know the National Registry says that they are to be transmitted promptly. Does anybody have any sense of what they mean by that?

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, that promptly, is the language that you’ll find in the FMCSA’s published materials. They didn’t. Apparently, they didn’t want to give themselves any specific timeframe. I don’t know if I’ve heard any experience I’d be interested in if anybody on the call has experience. But, in my view, if this is just an FMCSA. System that is, a middleman between the medical examiners and the registry, or in the and the State licensing agency. I don’t know why there would be any delay

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Brandon Wiseman: in the transmission of the results. If the if the registry is just ingesting new information from

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Brandon Wiseman: the medical examiner, and then, having that available for the State Licensing agency to download on their end. I don’t know what the reason would be for there to be any delay at all, but I don’t want to say that’s not happening, because I obviously don’t know. But yeah, I read promptly to mean immediately. But maybe that’s not the reality of the situation. I just don’t know for sure.

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Steve Kessler: Okay.

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Steve Kessler: here’s our question. I think you kind of touched on it. This person, I guess, is in Illinois, saying if a driver’s medical card expires today, and he does his renewal today, not taking into consideration the waiver. What is the new law? Do I have to get his MVR. Before I let him back into the truck tomorrow, or do I have a day or 2 after the expiration, to pull it out.

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Brandon Wiseman: Well, for under this waiver that we have in place now.

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Brandon Wiseman: assuming he gets a physical Med card, you can rely on that as proof of his physical qualification.

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Steve Kessler: For 50.

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Brandon Wiseman: So, you could put him in the truck tomorrow if you got that physical med card. But once the once this waiver is done. Then the answer would have been, no, you couldn’t put him in the in the truck tomorrow, because it’s not going to be uploaded to his driving record by tomorrow. It’s going to take at least a few days before you’re able to get an MVR. That shows the new

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Brandon Wiseman: medical certification status. So once that waiver is no more. Then, yeah, you know, having a driver whose Med card expires today, it’s going to be a few days before you’re going to be able to put them in the truck because you have got to wait on that. MVR.

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Steve Kessler: Interesting, has come in here from Tandy, saying they have

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Steve Kessler: I preferred me, who is supplying them with screenshots of their uploading successfully. The Me. See, that is the date stamped.

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Steve Kessler: So, I think that’s kind of an interesting thing. If you’ve got a good relationship.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, everybody.

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Steve Kessler: Got some backup there if you must challenge it down the road.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, that’s good.

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Steve Kessler: Awesome. Let’s see what else.

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Brandon Wiseman: Everybody else is asking for the list of 12 States again, let me put it up here on the screen. So, here’s 12 States, the ones highlighted in red. Here are the ones that aren’t following this new process yet.

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Steve Kessler: Or brick, and I think generally there are a lot of questions it’s more about. You know, it’s

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Steve Kessler: process is kind of clunky. What do I do.

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Brandon Wiseman: Very clunky, very clunky, in fact. So yeah, unfortunately, like, I said, you guys are all caught in the crosshairs motor carriers and the CDL drivers that are expected to follow this process, a process that by all accounts, was badly botched. And

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Brandon Wiseman: yeah, it’s frustrating, to say the least.

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Steve Kessler: If it goes beyond 15 days, you know, in the in that process

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Steve Kessler: they obviously the driver must not be on the road. Then right.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah. So even with the waiver. And again, this has been true for the last.

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Steve Kessler: Always been, this.

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Brandon Wiseman: Even though a lot of motor carriers didn’t know it. If you go past 15 days from the date the mud cart was issued.

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Brandon Wiseman: and you don’t yet have an MVR. Showing that that new medical certification is indeed on that driver’s record, then that driver’s not qualified anymore, even though they have the physical Med card. They’re not physically qualified because it’s not on their driving record. And so that state

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Brandon Wiseman: is going to take action to downgrade their CDL, like somebody was mentioning. And it’s just a cascading of problems there. So yeah, after the 15 days that that Med card is not valid proof of the driver’s physical qualifications.

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Steve Kessler: I have a question here from Scott’s asking, will non CDL. Drivers still receive a physical card. They must carry.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, yeah, the process is not changing for no one. CDL drivers. They will still get a physical Med card and still need to have it and still need to give their motor carriers a copy of it.

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Steve Kessler: Perfect.

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Steve Kessler: Alright, I think. Now it be a good time to move into part 2.

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Brandon Wiseman: All right, let’s move on to English language proficiency. I have become proficient at proficiency, which is good.

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Steve Kessler: Okay.

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Brandon Wiseman: You’re having to have deal with this over the last month. English language proficiency. I think you guys did another webinar on this topic last month. I didn’t. I wasn’t on it. But yeah, this was the big news in May when President Trump signed an executive order that essentially mandated the US DOT and the FMCSA. By extension

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Brandon Wiseman: to start what we are calling enhanced enforcement of the English language proficiency requirement. This is a requirement that has existed in the regulations for decades. At this point you can see it here. This is the regulation that requires it. 49CFR3 91.1 1 b. 2.

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Brandon Wiseman: It says that to be qualified

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Brandon Wiseman: a regulated driver has to be able to read and speak the English language sufficiently to converse with the general public to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, and to respond to official inquiries and make entries on reports and records like I said, that’s been in place for many years. In fact, going back to the 19 thirties, we’ve had something of that variety in the regulations or their predecessor regulations.

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Brandon Wiseman: What has changed over the years? What has fluctuated over the years has been the enforcement of that requirement, and how aggressively it is enforced by law enforcement and by the FMCSA.

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Brandon Wiseman: So, in 2,005. That was the 1st year that the CVSA. Added English language proficiency to its list of out of service criteria. So, in 2,000, beginning in 2,005, that’s when drivers were being sidelined on the road. If they couldn’t read and speak English proficiently according to the officer.

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Brandon Wiseman: But then that all changed in 2015, and you can kind of see what’s happening here. This is a very politically charged issue. And so, the policies around this issue are fluctuating, based on who happens to be in office at any given time. That’s just the reality of the situation, unfortunately, but it’s leading to this Ping Pong

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Brandon Wiseman: effect where we are going back and forth on this. But in 2015 the pendulum swung the other way. FMCSA. Relaxed enforcement and CVSA. Removed English language proficiency from its list of out of service criteria. It’s not to say it wasn’t a violation back then, but it’s just that. In 2015, until recently.

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Brandon Wiseman: drivers who were cited for lack of English language, proficiency, roadside would not be sidelined. They could continue to drive. It would just be a violation written up on their roadside inspection. Report.

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Brandon Wiseman: Well, that again changed pendulum back the other way

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Brandon Wiseman: in 2026, when trump signs the Executive order. Shortly thereafter, US DOT directs FMCSA. To issue an enforcement policy which FMCSA. In fact, did they issue enforcement policies and CVSA. Gets on board where now this is again effective. June 25th of 2026, now supposed to be written up as an out of service violation roadside.

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Brandon Wiseman: that enforcement policy

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Brandon Wiseman: further outlined to law enforcement. How law enforcement is supposed to be conducting these assessments. Roadside. You may have seen this policy, if not, I know we have it available on our website. We’ve written several articles on this. But yeah, here’s how it’s supposed to work so effectively. June 25th

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Brandon Wiseman: anytime a law Enforcement officer stops a regulated driver. They are, you know, going to be talking with them in the normal course of that stop, and if they have reason to believe that that driver is struggling to communicate with them, then they are directed to initiate this two-part English language. Proficiency.

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Brandon Wiseman: assessment, essentially 1st step would be a driver interview.

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Brandon Wiseman: There are specific questions that that officer is supposed to be asking the driver in this driver interview. There is a dozen or so questions that they ask. These are questions about

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Brandon Wiseman: things that would normally come up in a roadside inspection. Anyway, things like, where are you coming from. Where are you going? You know. Show me your bill of lading. Talk to me about your hours of service, those types of standard questions.

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Brandon Wiseman: But the officer is documenting the responses that they receive from the driver to those questions, and if the driver, if the officer deems that the driver is unable to communicate effectively in English.

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Brandon Wiseman: that assessment must be conducted in English, and answered in English, without the aid of any interpreting devices or interpreters, or anything like that. If the officer isn’t satisfied with the responses, then then that driver fails the test, and the officer is not supposed to move on to step 2, they will fail them at step one, and that driver is placed out of service for English language, proficiency, violation. And that’s how it’s supposed to go.

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Brandon Wiseman: If the driver

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Brandon Wiseman: successfully passes step one, then the officer is supposed to move on to step 2, which is a traffic sign recognition

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Brandon Wiseman: test. This is where they are going to show them a series of road signs, common traffic signs, and have the driver explain to them what the purpose of those signs are. What do they mean? What do these signs mean? And again, it’s a situation where, if the officer is satisfied that the driver can sufficiently explain their purpose in English.

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Brandon Wiseman: Then the driver passes. That test passes the English language proficiency test and moves on. But if they fail, that step 2, then also that will lead to the driver being placed out of service for English language proficiency. So, you know, drivers who fail, either step is cited and placed out of service for their failure.

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Brandon Wiseman: All right. So, one of the things that we’ve been doing at Trucksafe, FMCSA. Doesn’t make this data easily available. For some reason. I mean it’s out there, but you got to really dig for it. So, one of the things we’ve been tracking at Trucksafe is kind of tracking English language proficiency violations and putting out a monthly report

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Brandon Wiseman: to the clients of ours who subscribe to our monthly service here. And so, this is the latest data. So, FMCSA’s Enforcement data lags by a few weeks. So, we don’t have data for July, yet which would, which is going to be the most telling, because, again, this out of service enhanced enforcement of this requirement really took effect on June 25.th So what we’re looking at here is data from 2026. How many English language

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Brandon Wiseman: proficiency violations have been written up across the country

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Brandon Wiseman: for month to month, this year, in 2026,

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Brandon Wiseman: you could see in the 1st few months we were averaging around 700 English language proficiency violations across the Us. But then you could, you could see that in May we saw a substantial uptick. This was the month that trump announced the executive order.

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Brandon Wiseman: In fact, we saw an 80% increase month over month from April to May. We saw over 1,400 ELP violations written up in May, and then you could see you could start to see here. The States are really starting to gear up to that. June 25th enhanced enforcement. The June data shows that we saw 161% increase from May to June

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Brandon Wiseman: in total ELP violations written up over across the Us. So nearly 4,000 ELP violations written up throughout the Us. In June.

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Brandon Wiseman: We could further break this down by state kind of get a heat map of what States are being particularly aggressive with their enforcement of the ELP requirement. You could see here

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Brandon Wiseman: not all that surprisingly in one sense, but surprisingly in another sense. Texas is, you know, tops the list, you know. Your inclination may be well, yeah, that’s what we would expect. Being on the border with Mexico, we would expect a high number of ELP violations, but historically, Texas had relatively few of these violations. For a couple of reasons. Number one

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Brandon Wiseman: they had, and still have, to some extent, I believe, a state policy that essentially says, for intrastate operations drivers in Texas. We’re not going to write them up for ELP violations, and that’s been my understanding. That has been, in fact, for a while, and continues to be. In effect.

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Brandon Wiseman: I question the legality of that, but that’s a discussion for another day. But that. So that was one reason why Texas was historically low on these types of violations. But in another sense.

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Brandon Wiseman: Texas also, as you would probably expect, has a relatively high number of law enforcement officers who are bilingual themselves

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Brandon Wiseman: that speak both English and Spanish. And so, you can imagine how this plays out is that if one of those officers talks with one of those officers are going to be less inclined to find that a particular driver is not proficient in English than a driver in Indiana. That’s not proficient in Spanish themselves. So, for that reason, Texas and other border States were historically low on the counts of ELP violations, but it has picked up in Texas

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Brandon Wiseman: and Texas is now the number one State in which these ELP violations are being written up, and a lot of those I will note, even though we’ve attributed them to Texas in our graph here. A lot of these are Federal inspections

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Brandon Wiseman: conducted by FMCSA. Not so much Texas DPF, so a lot of the violations that you’re seeing coming out of Texas for English language proficiency are being written up by Federal law enforcement rather than State law enforcement. So anyway, you can kind of get a sense from this graph. The States that are being aggressive with it. Texas, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Illinois. To some extent. Those are the States that seem to have ramped up their efforts. And

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Brandon Wiseman: again, this is data only through June of this year, and so I fully anticipate that when we get July’s data, these numbers are going to skyrocket even higher. So, we’ll just have to wait and see. Once FMCSA published July data where we land.

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Brandon Wiseman: So there again, I misspoke on that 1st one. So, 71% increase in ELP violations across the country from April to May, and then that 161% increase may to June so substantial, and will be even more substantial in July, no doubt.

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Brandon Wiseman: So here are my recommendations for motor carriers and drivers when it comes to English language, proficiency

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Brandon Wiseman: carriers. My recommendation to you is that you be doing your own ELP assessments during your onboarding process. When you are bringing on board new drivers, you should have an assessment. I mean the 1st line of defense. Obviously, your recruiters, or whoever are talking to these drivers. If you are concerned that they’re not going to be able to pass a proficiency test roadside. Then why are you even putting them in the seat? I mean, you’re just going to run yourself into trouble at that point.

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Brandon Wiseman: But beyond that, what a lot of motor carriers, particularly the larger ones, have implemented, and that I recommend all carriers. Implement is a documented assessment.

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Brandon Wiseman: You know, shameless plug for us. We’ve developed our own assessment. If anybody’s interested in sourcing one, we’ve got one available Trucksafe.com slash ELP. But it could be relatively simple. It’s just. And what I recommend it to do is that it model essentially what officers are doing. Roadside, which is it should involve an interview component, and it should involve a traffic sign. Recognition component.

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Brandon Wiseman: you know. Show your drivers some road signs, have them, explain them to you in English, and conduct an interview with them where you ask questions and document the results of that. It’s important that you document it, in my view, so that you have some proof available to you if you need it, down the road. If that driver, then goes and gets stopped down the road

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Brandon Wiseman: and written up for an out of service. ELP violation. Well, then, if you want to challenge that, what are you going to have to challenge it? If you don’t have documentation that you conducted one of these assessments. So, it is better to have that type of assessment in your back pocket in case you need it in that context or in the context of an audit. For example, it’s best to have some kind of documentation for that assessment.

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Brandon Wiseman: Beyond that, the question I get most

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Brandon Wiseman: often, and that I still don’t have a great answer to is, what do we do? Once we have a driver who is placed out of service for an English language, proficiency, violation. How do I get them back in service?

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Brandon Wiseman: FMCSA. Hasn’t answered that question for you, to my knowledge, CVSA. Hasn’t answered that question to you. So, your kind of left to your own devices

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Brandon Wiseman: for what it’s worth. My thought on this is that you have got to do something about it. You can’t just put them back in the truck afterwards.

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Brandon Wiseman: and the reason you can’t is because if you do that, and they go down the road and they get stopped by another officer. Now you’re risking getting a jumping and out of service order violation, which is a very heavily weighted violation of your CSA scores, and it will cause you serious problems. But I would feel more comfortable with you putting them back in the truck. If you’ve got some real substantive proof that you’ve done something to rehabilitate them.

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Brandon Wiseman: to get them to be proficient in the English language. And what does that look like?

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Brandon Wiseman: I don’t know exactly. I think at minimum. It needs to be a training course

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Brandon Wiseman: in English in the English language, and I think you need to have some type of certificate that they have completed in an English course, and the more substantive that course the better. In my opinion.

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Brandon Wiseman: You know, if you’ve got a driver who’s truly not proficient in English. You’re not going to teach them to be proficient in English through some 30 min course, or something like that. There’s got to be some substance to it in my view, and this is not just a roadside risk that you face. It’s also a highway accident risk. If you put that driver back in the truck too quickly without doing your due diligence to make sure they are proficient, and then God forbid! They go and kill somebody

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Brandon Wiseman: that’s not going to look great for you in the context of that litigation. We’ve seen that play out badly for motor carriers anecdotally in other cases, including

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Brandon Wiseman: that 1-billion-dollar case that we saw come out of Florida

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Brandon Wiseman: several years ago. 2020. I think

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Brandon Wiseman: it was the 1st ever 1-billion-dollar jury verdict awarded against 2 trucking companies. You may remember that case. One of the issues in that case was that the driver who plowed into the line of stopped traffic

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Brandon Wiseman: admitted that he was non-English speaking and couldn’t read the road signs. The flashing road signs that would have alerted him to the fact that the traffic was stopped ahead.

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Brandon Wiseman: That wasn’t the only issue in the case, obviously, but it was a contributing factor to that huge jury verdict awarded in that case. So, the point here is, you better have some good evidence on your part. If you’re the motor carrier that’s employing these drivers, if you’re planning to put that driver back in the seat, you better have some substantive proof that you’ve done some work to make sure that driver is proficient before you put them back in the truck.

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Brandon Wiseman: And like I said, I think the thing that makes the most sense is some kind of substantive English language training again. This isn’t a plug for me. I got nothing out of it. But

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Brandon Wiseman: we do have a relationship with an English language provider called Babel, I mean, some of you may have used. This is a service that’s been around for years. It’s something I could use if I wanted to go learn Spanish, for example, it’s on your phone mobile device.

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Brandon Wiseman: and it’s a substantive course. But they have these available and we have a relationship with them. Where, if you’ve got drivers that you want to put through a course like that again, go to Trucksafe.com slash ELP, and you’ll find that Babel partnership that we have. I think the INFINITI folks may also have something like this as well. So also check with them, because I think they have that available. But that’s the type of training you need in my view, and then a certificate that they’ve completed that training to feel comfortable, putting them back in the truck.

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Brandon Wiseman: and then also, just, you know, if you’re a fleet, particularly if you’re a fleet with drivers operating in multiple states, I would recommend that you keep abreast of how the enforcement is playing out from state to state through things like that data that I showed you that heat map. So, you can, you know, be aware of which states are aggressive, and maybe you use that to inform your dispatching, of which drivers we want to send in what states that type of thing. So those are my recommendations again for what they’re worth.

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Brandon Wiseman: That’s all I got on English language training. We’ve got a few minutes here left for any questions on that, or going back to the other topic.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah, thanks, Brandon. There are a couple of questions, and you already mentioned that we have some tools to help with the medical certification and English language proficiency. Both tools help you orally have a conversation with the driver. Kind of what those questions are going to be asked on the road, and

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Steve Kessler: some checklists that they can go through to verify the driver’s understanding of the road signs, too. So, we have some tools available in the system to help you evaluate your current drivers as well as the process you’re going to need to do bringing on new drivers.

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Steve Kessler: So, I put a poll thing up here. So, if you’re interested in following up with us, let us know a couple of questions here, and I think these are pretty good ones.

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Steve Kessler: Melissa is asking, do I have to recover driver and equipment roadside after being put out of service until I can prove they meet El P expectations.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah, yeah, I mean that raises those highlights. The concern I just talked about is whether the driver has been cited for an ELP violation.

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Brandon Wiseman: You’ve got a real risk if you just put them back in the truck and say, keep going. You’ve got a risk of getting a jumping and out of service order, and that is very risky. I wouldn’t want you to do that. So that means you’re going to have to recover the equipment. You’re going to have to repower the load by sending another driver or hiring another motor carrier to come to come. Get it until you do something about that driver.

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Steve Kessler: So, the driver will not be able to return the equipment to the terminal. They’re out of service wherever that happened.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, it’s just like if the truck had a flat tire, you can’t drive that truck until that flat tire is fixed. Same instance, here the driver is out of service for that English language. Proficiency. They can’t. They can’t move anymore.

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Steve Kessler: Here’s another good question. If the driver passed the inspection once.

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Steve Kessler: Will it show in the system? Is it possible the driver will be inspected again and go over it again.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, this highlights the major problem with this rule and its enforcement, which is the subjectivity of the rule. Right? So, what one officer thinks is proficient. The next officer down the road may think he is not proficient in answering your specific question.

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Brandon Wiseman: Will the 1st inspection show that they passed an English language proficiency test? Not necessarily. They may just get a clean inspection report out of that. That mentions nothing about English language proficiency. Unfortunately. So then, I worry that going down the road if he gets stopped and questioned about his proficiency. You’re not going to be able to rely on that that 1st one, although I guess you could.

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Brandon Wiseman: I probably still would try and rely on it like if I had to file a data cue on that second one, I would certainly say, hey, this driver just got stopped by your colleague down the road, and he got a clean inspection out of it. What’s that about? I would certainly file that in the data cues appeal the fact that he got a clean inspection. But will it specifically have mentioned that he passed an ELP test in that 1st inspection. Not necessarily. I don’t think.

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Steve Kessler: Okay.

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Steve Kessler: here’s a good question. So, we have a few drivers that are lacking in the ELP area. If we conduct proactive training, could that be considered some sort of discrimination, since we are making that distinct training specifically for them.

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Brandon Wiseman: It’s a good question. I will be the 1st to tell you. I’m not an employment attorney. Those are employment law issues. You should certainly run those up with your Hr. Team and with your employment and counsel if you’ve got them, and those are real concerns. Those are legitimate concerns, and I have heard of some States being aggressive on the labor front, on the employment side of things

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Brandon Wiseman: with that type of issue, you would hope it would not be a problem. Since you’ve got the Federal Government telling you essentially must do these things, but there is some nuance to it that is worth running by the Employment Council.

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Steve Kessler: Great one question I have for you, Brandon. You put up some nice statistics about the number of violations, and how much that’s gone up. Is there any sense of how many of those were put out of service?

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah. So, remember, we only have the data through. I think. July 3rd was when the data cuts off. So, we only had a few days there when the out-of-service enforcement was in effect. So, we are starting to see them flip over to out of service, but relatively few on that list were out of service because it was historical before they flipped over to the out of service criteria, so most on that existing line chart that I showed are non out of service.

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Brandon Wiseman: But that’s going to do a complete 180 here in July. In the July data all of them should be out of service, going forward effectively. June 25.th

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Steve Kessler: All right. One last question here. Really quick. It says, if we send our driver for a voluntary inspection.

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Steve Kessler: will he be back in service. I guess he passes the inspection again right.

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Brandon Wiseman: Yeah, a couple of notes here.

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Brandon Wiseman: one is broader than what you’re asking, but I’ll just mention it because I have a lot of clients. Ask me about the efficacy of volunteering for inspection.

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Brandon Wiseman: even back in the day, I would tell you. That’s not a good idea. Don’t volunteer for an inspection, because you never know what crap could happen in that inspection. Then you end up worse off than you were to begin with. But what has since happened within the last couple of years. As I understand it, it’s my understanding that there’s now a directive out from CVSA. But I also think from FMCSA. I think FMCSA. Has told CVSA that FMCSA. Will not provide Grant money

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Brandon Wiseman: for volunteered inspections, and so as I understand it, most law enforcement agencies won’t even do volunteered inspections anymore as a matter of course. I don’t even know that that’s going to be a real option for you. If you happen to be able to get one, I will tell you it’s probably not a great idea to do it. But that’s just my observation for what it’s worth.

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Steve Kessler: Very good.

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Steve Kessler: Well, Brandon, we’ve kind of come to our hour time frame here. I don’t see any other questions. I think we’ve answered most of them. So once again, thank you for joining us. I’m sure there’ll be some more updates coming to see where this all lands. But thank you for your insight and your feedback, and I know you’re very much in touch with the industry. So, thank you for your presentation today, thanks to all of you that joined us today, Mark. Thank you.

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Steve Kessler: and we’ll be following up. If we get some more news about this, we’ll certainly set up something, so y’all can join us, and we can talk about it. Brandon. Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time. Thanks, everybody for joining us, and I will hope to see you on the next webinar.

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Brandon Wiseman: See everyone.

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Steve Kessler: Thanks, mark.

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Mark Rhea: Thank you. Brandon.