Just more than a year since the English language proficiency requirement returned to out-of-service treatment at roadside, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposes to codify OOS orders for ELP violations.
In a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking set to publish in the Federal Register Monday, FMCSA proposes to update safety regulations to reflect “current enforcement tolerances” by making clear a violation of 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2) is an out-of-service violation.
The regs, the agency proposes, should reflect the exception to the rule for cross-border international drivers only operating within border zones.
“Noncompliance with ELP requirements will result in a driver being placed OOS,” the agency said, “unless the driver’s current trip would not involve transportation in the United States outside of the U.S.-Mexico border commercial zones.”
Changes outlined in full in the NPRM are intended to align with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s most recent OOS criteria, including a shift in approach to border-zone violations that began in April this year.
The shift narrowed “the previous exception for placing drivers OOS for ELP violations” in those border zones, FMCSA noted in the NPRM.
Previously, any driver receiving an ELP violation in a border zone benefited from the exception, yet as Overdrive reported in June, now only drivers on those cross-border trips staying in the border zone specifically are eligible for the exception.
Analysis in the NPRM estimated an annual 9K more drivers OOS in border-zone inspections as a result of the change.
[Related: FMCSA tightens English language regs in the border zones]
Judging by Overdrive and sister data company RigDig‘s accounting, inspectors all around the nation have been issuing increasing numbers of ELP violations, particularly since the state of California finally caved to federal pressure and began enforcing the English rule roadside in January this year.
With data current through much of June in RigDig’s accounting, inspectors this year have issued more than 16,000 ELP OOS orders, well more than the roughly 12,500 recorded over the last half of 2025. ELP OOS orders are charted below month to month since July 2025.
FMCSA’s new NPRM won’t change anything about the roadside ELP enforcement landscape, fundamentally, but seeks to align the regulations as written with current practice.
The agency nonetheless estimated annual costs of additional border-zone OOS orders as a result of the April policy change and, ultimately, the rule at final stage.
The agency assumed “9,000 drivers would be placed OOS annually within the border commercial zones at a cost of $800 per day, and that it would take an average of two days to locate and dispatch a replacement driver and get the freight to its final destination.
“This results in an annual cost of $14.4 million” for motor carriers impacted.
Publication of the NPRM Monday, Aug. 10, after this story originally aired the Friday prior, opened a comment period under docket number FMCSA-2026-0826. Stakeholder can examine the rule and comment via that link or with:
- Mail to Dockets Operations, U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Ave. S.E., WWashington, D.C. 20590
- Fax: 202-493-2251
