When I got my CDL more than a decade ago, I thought that was an over and done with type of thing—other than DOT physicals and renewals, of course.
But under the Dalilah Law, I’m up for another round of scrutiny. We all are. What that may look like is anyone’s guess right now.
Proposed by Indiana Senator Jim Banks and championed by President Trump, the Dalilah Law, among other things, calls for "all individuals who, as of the date of enactment of this Act, hold a covered license or authorization issued by the State to be re-certified for that covered license or authorization not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act."
You and me. We’re "all."
Six months doesn't feel like a long time to re-certify 3.5 million truck drivers—at least not at the pace the Alabama DMV moves, even if a lot of those cases are easy. Thorough processes generally aren't quick, and quick processes aren't generally thorough. It’s an interesting intersection we find ourselves at here: having to certify that we are who we say we are, that we are still who we said we were however many years ago, and that we're now compliant with a ruleset we didn't know about back then.
I was born and raised in Alabama and have never lived anywhere else. The state of Alabama, should this law pass, will have to certify that I am a U.S. citizen, proficient in the English language, and that I passed all the required knowledge and skills examinations in English. I am and did all of those, by the way.
Proving that I’m a citizen should be easy enough. The state has a copy of my birth certificate; they’re the ones who issued it. I’ve got a passport, a REAL ID, and Transportation Security Administration clearance. I’m about as deep in the American identity funnel as you can get.
Proving that I am proficient in English after the fact seems difficult administratively. I took my CDL test (the English-language version) on a computer. I assume there is some kind of electronic record indicating that CANNON, JASON could at least read and understand those questions and that I, indeed, took and passed an English-based version of the test. Do I get bonus points for having written this, also in English?
Maybe mine is the easy case for recertification, but I wonder about the old-schoolers: the ones who've had their CDLs for 20, 30, or 40 years; the ones who took their road test in a farm truck pulling a horse trailer; ones that have been grandfathered under prior rule changes; and the ones whose written test was actually written on a piece of paper and scored by hand.
I asked Sen. Banks’ office (three times) what the recertification process might look like but they haven't responded. Four days with no reply suggests the answer might be what we all probably suspect it is: they don't know. I asked a similar question of the Department of Transportation. While they did reply, they didn't have an answer.
My counterpart at CCJ’s sister publication Overdrive, Todd Dills, caught up with FMCSA chief Derek Barrs at an event in Birmingham, Ala., late last week and asked him the same questions that I have shotgunned into voicemails and email addresses since last Wednesday.
"I want to make sure we've got the qualified driver behind the wheel," Barrs said. "I'm not going to go into what the final process is going to look like... whatever that looks like, and what the process is going to look like, we will start looking to iron that out moving forward. We are moving aggressive to make sure that we have the most qualified folks behind the wheel."
Translation: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I guess we'll all figure this one out together. I just hope it's not while we're all standing in line at the DMV.
