With the return of English Language Proficiency as a priority for roadside inspectors this year, we've had some glimpses of a smattering of states where ELP enforcement has taken on new life -- and the opposite, with others (California, certainly) taking their time in adopting new regulations and procedures for state inspectors to enforce the rule, risking federal funding in the process.
Since the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance put its imprimatur on the White House's order to return ELP violations to the out-of-service criteria, data shows one state has boosted violations issued by 1,100%, while plenty others' violation totals have actually fallen (California among them).
With most of two post-OOS months' worth of violation data having flowed into our sister company RigDig Business Intelligence's custom CSA's Data Trail state-to-state violations dashboard, we looked at violation numbers in the months just before the out-of-service designation came back into play June 25 (May and June) -- and compared those numbers to the two full months after, July and August. Given "officer discretion" is always at play roadside, where's discretion around ELP changing most?
The majority of states have increased violation numbers post-June, and California's not the only state where violations actually took a downturn in the overall numbers. That is, it's not the only state where violations show a negative number on the map charting the immediate before-and-after difference below.
% rises and falls: Top 10 biggest among states
- South Dakota: 1,100%, though starting from a tiny base of just 2 ELP violations in all of May and June to 24 violations issued in July and August.
- Montana: 666%
- Rhode Island: 600%, similarly from just 1 all the way to 7 violations July-August. All of the top 4 shown here started from a base in the single digits in May/June.
- Idaho: 500%
- Oklahoma: 317%
- Oregon: 282%
- Texas: 242%, and no state issues more ELP violations than the Lone Star State, before and after ELP returned to the out-of-service criteria. Post-June, inspectors there recorded more than 7,000 such violations.
- Ohio: 233%
- North Dakota: 166% -- North Dakota's big rise is in the single digits, from 3 viols recorded in May/June to 8 in July/August.
- Arizona: 166%, and like Texas a border state that issues a high number of ELP violations. Post-June, Arizona topped 1,100 ELP infractions in this accounting, the only state other than Texas with violation numbers in the thousands. The next highest-count state behind Arizona is far behind indeed in Wyoming at slightly more than 250 recorded.
In percentage-increase terms, West Virginia, Iowa, and Wisconsin weren't far behind the No. 10 ranking, all increasing volume of their ELP violations well above the 137% national average increase in the months compared. (Most of that rise is accounted for by the uptick in the high-violation-volume state of Texas.)
[Related: Washington pushes to keep funding after English enforcement, CDL lapses]
On the other end, and as shown on the map above, almost 20 states actually saw ELP violations decline in their inspectors' workdays. Here's the biggest declines seen in this accounting:
- Washington: -92%
- Nevada: -64%
- Massachusetts: -61%
- Maryland: -58%
- New Hampshire: -42%
- Illinois: -37%
- Maine: -37%
- Vermont: -35%
- California: -35%
- Minnesota: -33%
[Related: Foreign driver exodus clearing parking lots and boosting rates?]
University of Tennessee (Knoxville) prof Alex Scott's recent research around ELP enforcement (stay tuned for more on that research from Overdrive Senior Editor Matt Cole) recently underscored this high degree of variability among states issuing ELP violations.
CVSA, as an international, deliberative body, strives for standards in enforcement that are applied in a standard way, yet as Overdrive's CSA's Data Trail series has made it abundantly clear, starting more than a decade ago, that intensity of enforcement from jurisdiction to jurisdiction is anything but standard.
That's long been a barrier to meaningful interpretation of safety records in the federal CSA Safety Measurement System for motor carriers. A big part of any carrier's record there depends on the priorities of the truck enforcement departments in the areas where a carrier's your trucks and drivers run, and happen to be inspected.
More from the CSA's Data Trail series via this link.
[Related: Toughest 10 states for brake violations, as inspection blitz kicks off]
