Drivers for Mexican commercial trucking companies that operate in the U.S. might soon be listening to something new in their cabs — AI English lessons.
Until then, truckers are filling up English-language classes in Nuevo Laredo and other border cities, rehearsing conversations they might have with U.S. authorities.
In April, U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring truck drivers to be proficient in English sufficiently so as to understand traffic signs and communicate with law enforcement officers — and imposing sanctions if they don’t.
On June 26, U.S. authorities began suspending licenses and issuing warnings to operators who demonstrated a lack of English proficiency. Within a week, 40 Mexican truckers had been stripped of their licenses and about 6,000 truckers have been pulled off the road to date for English-language proficiency violations.
There are roughly 80,000 commercial freight drivers operating along the Mexico-U.S. border, according to Mexico’s National Trucking Association (Canacar), but only about 20% are fluent in English.
“The situation has caused considerable distress in our community and will continue to be a problem for the industry,” Israel Delgado, a regional Canacar vice president, told the newspaper El Sol de Tijuana.
The English proficiency standard for truckers is longstanding U.S. law, but the current crackdown is unprecedented. Trump’s executive order reversed guidance from 2016 recommending that inspectors not place commercial drivers out of service if their only violation was a lack of English-speaking skills.
The Trump administration increased the pressure on Mexican trucking companies last week by suspending applications for new work visas for commercial truck drivers.
“We are seeing an increase in enforcement and a tightening of the rules,” Delgado said, calling the issue a priority for Canacar. “We expect these stringent measures to continue throughout the year and into the next, particularly in the state of Texas, where the majority of suspensions and citations have occurred.”
Delgado said several freight forwarding companies are already providing private language classes and courses to their operators, but learning and mastering the language in a few months is difficult.
As such, Canacar is exploring the possibility of developing artificial intelligence programs that would allow the driver to learn and improve English proficiency while driving.
In the meantime, several institutes and schools along the northern border have taken on the task of offering specialized courses designed for truck drivers.
With reports from El Sol de Tijuana, Reforma and The New York Times
