The closure of 110 trucking schools reads like a federalism fight with California. Mechanically it is something else entirely: it is a cut to the only legal pipeline through which new truck drivers enter the American economy. Since February 2022, the Entry Level Driver Training rule has made it impossible to obtain a first commercial driver's license without completing behind-the-wheel and theory training at a provider listed on the FMCSA Training Provider Registry. A school that is removed from that registry cannot certify anyone. Its students do not get licensed somewhere else next week; they queue, or they give up.
This lands on top of two other licensing actions that were already draining the pool. The English Language Proficiency standard was restored as an out-of-service criterion, meaning a driver who fails a roadside assessment is not fined, he is parked. And the restrictions on non-domiciled CDLs, together with the audit of licenses issued in California, put a large cohort of already-working drivers at risk of losing the document that lets them run. Three separate instruments, one direction of travel: fewer bodies in seats. Unlike a demand recovery, which the market has been promised every year since 2023 and has never received, this is not a forecast. It is an administrative action that has already happened.