The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Tuesday took another big step toward cleaning up its Trainer Provider Registry as the agency looks to stamp out "CDL mills" with the removal of about 3,800 more training providers.
On Dec. 1, FMCSA announced the removal of nearly 3,000 commercial driver’s license (CDL) training providers from its Training Provider Registry (TPR). At the time, Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the training providers were removed "for failing to equip trainees with the Trump Administration’s standards of readiness."
Another 4,500 training providers were placed on notice due to potential noncompliance, DOT added.
Overdrive has learned that the 3,800 providers recently removed came from the batch of 4,500 served notice in December.
FMCSA began conducting in-person audits of another 1,500 schools Dec. 15, and any school that failed the audit would have been given 30 days to get into compliance. As such, any removals resulting from those audits wouldn't have processed yet.
[Related: Training provider attrition part of FMCSA purge]
When FMCSA first started mass removals from the TPR, Overdrive talked to a small fleet owner who got a notice of removal. That was Jason Cowan of Silver Creek Transportation of Henderson, Kentucky, a tanker and flatbed carrier and 2021 Overdrive Small Fleet Champ. Cowan had done some paperwork to get on the registry, but never followed through to actually train drivers under the Entry Level Driver Training standards for pre-CDL instruction.
