Indiana CDL Crackdown: 1,800 Commercial Drivers Lose Licenses

David Craig: So there’s major crackdowns. I mean, the goal here is let’s put safe drivers on the roadway. When you decide to become a professional truck driver, then you say, “Okay, I want to make my livelihood doing this. I’m going to get trained, and I promise you I will follow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. I will do what’s necessary to be safe.” I’m attorney Dave Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of the law firm of Craig, Kelley & Faultless. I’ve represented people who have been seriously injured or who have had a family member killed in a semi or other big truck wreck for over 30 years. Following the wreck, their lives are chaos. Often they don’t even know enough about the process to ask the right questions. It is my goal to empower you by providing you with the information you need to protect yourself and your family. In each and every episode, I will interview top experts and professionals that are involved in truck wreck cases. In the Ask David episodes of After the Crash, we switch things up. Instead of me asking questions, I answer the questions. Nothing’s off limits, and they ask me about truck safety, about truck accidents, about semi-truck litigation, about commercial motor vehicle wrecks. You name it, I talk about it. This is After the Crash.

Ashley Napier: Hello, everybody, and welcome to a new May edition of the After the Crash Podcast, Ask David Edition. I am your host, Ashley Napier, litigation supervisor here at Craig Kelly & Faultless. David, how are you?

David Craig: I’m doing fantastic. Nice shirt.

Ashley Napier: Nice shirt.

David Craig: We did not coordinate that. We did not plan this.

Ashley Napier: No. Great minds think alike though. So I wanted to jump in and there’s been some pretty radical changes in Indiana trucking law since we last touched base. So on April 1st, Indiana House Enrolled Act 1200 took into effect. And so generally that law narrows the eligibility for non-domiciled CDL drivers. And I wanted to get your thoughts on that new act that passed.

David Craig: Yeah. I mean, I appreciate it, Ashley. It’s always a pleasure to be on with you. I mean, we try to stay on current events. And as of April 1st, almost 1,800 non-domiciled CDL drivers in Indiana lost their CDL. And so it’s a big deal. It’s big news, and it’s happening nationwide. And so, I think folks are starting to see some of the repercussions of that. And so, and the governor here, they’re trying to make the road safer, both at the federal level and the state level. And I think you have to go back to say, “Well, is that an issue? Is domiciled, non-domiciled drivers…” First of all, I think you need to understand that non-domiciled drivers are not drivers from Mexico or Canada because we have laws that allow each Canada and Mexico drivers to come into the United States, United States drivers to go into Canada and Mexico. So non-domiciled means drivers from other countries, other foreign countries other than Canada and Mexico. And if you go back a few years and say the last past 10 years or so, you start seeing a trend. And it started with the ATA, or ATA, which is a big lobbying group for the trucking industry. The trucking industry started saying that they didn’t have enough drivers. So they started looking for drivers, and you heard all the time there was this shortage of drivers. And so, one of the solutions was, well, let’s allow non-domiciled drivers, let’s allow folks that are here on visas to drive semi tractor-trailers, and this will provide us with more drivers. And we did a little research, and it looks like from 2000 to 2021, there was, starting at 2000, there were 316,000 non-domiciled truck drivers. And by 2025, we had that, it was more than doubled, to 720,000 non-domiciled truck drivers. And as of this past year, 2025, 18% of all drivers, truck drivers, were from a foreign country. So that’s kind of what started the problem. You started seeing all these drivers coming in the country, you started seeing them driving, and you had a lot more non-domiciled, a lot of more foreign drivers, and that presented some challenges.

Ashley Napier: Certainly. And I think that at least here in Indiana, there were events in the last year that led up to, that kind of culminated in this passing of this act. And there were four that the news outlets are kind of citing in terms of horrific crashes. I know one was, let’s see, February of this year, early February, February 3rd, and a non-domiciled CDL truck driver ended up killing four people in Jay County on State Route 67.

David Craig: Yeah. Those were Amish folks that got killed, I think, and there were four of them killed in that wreck. And the semi driver had a bad driving record, and he was driving for a company that had a motor carrier that had a significant number of safety violations as well. So it was a bad company, and it was a bad driver, and unfortunately it resulted in the death of four people.

Ashley Napier: Four people. Yeah, it’s just heartbreaking. And then there was one in Hendricks County, which is… We have an office in Hendricks County, and a 64-year-old man was killed out there when a driver failed to stop at a light, and that happened-

David Craig: That was in Avon. I mean, that’s where our office is. I mean, so it was a foreign driver who ran a red light. He was arrested by ICE afterwards, detained. And so you have a bad situation. Even before both of those, there was one in, I think Portage, Indiana. In that one, a 54-year-old man was killed and a semi-driver in that county, the semi-driver was here illegally. And the crazy thing about that one, he was using a family member’s canceled CDL, I mean suspended CDL, driver’s license. So he had a CDL, it was suspended from another family member. And so this guy did not… The guy that killed the gentleman up in Portage, the driver was not properly licensed, had no CDL. And in fact, he was using another family member’s suspended CDL. So those are three. And I think then more recently, there was one where a pedestrian was hit.

Ashley Napier: That’s correct. A pedestrian was struck on March 5th of this year. And-

David Craig: That was kind of sad because that was like a wheelchair. The person was in a wheelchair and was on a median, I think maybe a panhandler maybe. I’m not sure, not the specifics, but it sounded like he’d been there before and been out there and aware. And the semi got him on the blind side of the trailer and killed him. But those were four. I mean, so you have four here, this is just Indiana. I mean, there were some also ones down Texas, one, some down Florida. I mean, there was these a lot of high profile, horrible, horrible, horrible wrecks happened to be caused by drivers who were from foreign countries who had either not properly, they were not here properly, they were not documented, they didn’t have visas, they did not have a proper CDL, or they were non-domiciled CDLs.

Ashley Napier: Yeah. And so all those horrific crashes lead up to the passing of the bill. And I think the interesting thing there is there was no grandfather clause within it. So they immediately started revoking CDLs on April 1st of 2026 here in Indiana. I think, and David, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I think there were 1,800 CDLs that were revoked.

David Craig: Yeah, just under 1,800.

Ashley Napier: Yeah.

David Craig: Well, I think you have to think of two… I mean, so these are people who are driving trucks for a living. And so one day they’re driving, and then on April 1st, they’re not. They’re having their CDLs canceled, their non-domiciled drive… And it’s not because they themselves were bad drivers or that they couldn’t drive a truck or they weren’t properly, or that it’s not even because they couldn’t speak English. I mean, because the English proficiency is also another thing they’re cracking down on. But it was just on April 1st, non-domiciled drivers were losing their license. You used to have to have a proper visa, H-2A, H-2B or E-2 visa. If you had a proper visa, you were allowed, you could go get a non-domiciled license to drive a CDL. Still had to be qualified, still had to show that you were properly trained and you could pass the test, but now we’re just cracking down on those. And I’m sure we’re going to pick up some bad drivers by doing that, but there’s also, unfortunately, there’s going to be some good drivers, some good folks who never had a wreck, never had an accident who also are going to get caught in this mess.

Ashley Napier: Yep, caught up in the net, so to speak. You touched on a little about the change to English speaking as part of this act that passed. Can you talk about that in a little bit more detail?

David Craig: Yeah. I mean, the federal government has required English proficiency. So if you drive a commercial motor vehicle, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations required you to be able to speak and read and understand English sufficiently to communicate with the authorities and to read signs and those type of things. And so it’s really not new, but when President Trump took over and Duffy took over the Department of Transportation, they decided that we’re going to crack down on that. We’re going to start enforcing it, because again, some of these horrific wrecks were happening, and some of these drivers that were causing these wrecks couldn’t speak English or read English. And so they cracked down on it. And so now they’re actually taking drivers out of service. And so at a rest stop or truck stop, wherever, a weigh station, if the enforcement division comes up and tests you and determines that you can’t speak or read English fluently, then they can take you out of service right there and impound your truck or stop your truck from traveling. And so that’s huge. I’ve been doing this for 40 years, and I can tell you that it’s not because people can’t speak English. It’s not that in and of itself. It’s not because of where they’re from. There’s a safety concern that when folks can’t speak or read English, don’t understand English, that they’re a danger on the roadways. And I’ve talked to plenty of experts who agree with that. I’ve talked to mechanics who have trouble communicating with drivers. The driver comes in, has an issue with the truck, and they cannot even communicate with them sufficiently to tell them what to do to fix the truck or how to fix it. And the drivers sometimes just take off without fixing it. Same way with other issues, safety issues that come up, they can’t communicate or understand what they are. Digital signs in construction zones, they change and there are different warnings. Some drivers couldn’t read those signs, and so therefore were not aware of what guidance they were given. So there’s a variety of ways that it can be dangerous when they’re in an accident or they can’t communicate sufficiently with the police or the officers. So there’s a significant number of ways. And so we’ve said, “Hey, we want to crack down on that. ” And Indiana is also, they went a little further and said, “Well, we’re not going to test drivers on utilizing tests that are in foreign languages.” Some states, you still can take a test and get your CDL in a natural language, whatever language you speak. In Indiana, you no longer can do that.

Ashley Napier: Right. I think with the passing of the House Enrolled Act 1200, there also comes along with that some CDL school closures.

David Craig: Yeah. So there’s a major crackdown, and I think overall it’s really good. I mean, the goal here is let’s put safe drivers on the roadway. When you decide to become a professional truck driver, not everybody can do that. And so you have to have special knowledge, you have to have special skill, and you have to be physically fit in order to drive a truck. And a trucking company has to make sure that you also are physically fit, knowledgeable, and experienced and trained to drive a truck. So if you decide I’m going to be a professional truck driver, then you say, “Okay, I want to make my livelihood doing this. I’m going to get trained and I’m going to subject myself to a physical and I am going to drive this truck. And I promise you that I will follow the rules. I will follow the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. I will do what’s necessary to be safe.” And those rules are really higher and different than driving a car, which makes sense because they’re 40 tons, they’re 80,000 pounds. And so these vehicles are extraordinarily dangerous, just like an airplane. I can’t just go jump in an airplane and fly it. I have to be physically fit. I have to be qualified. I have to get a license. And so they’re going to make sure that I am qualified before they let me go in an airplane. Same thing happens with a truck. Now, you don’t have to drive a truck, but if you do drive a truck, you have to promise to follow these rules. And unfortunately, some of the CDL schools out there were not properly training drivers. And so they were preparing them to pass the test for the particular state that they were getting the CDL in. There was some inconsistency from state to state, and there’s been some other challenges. And so the guidelines, the follow-up and monitoring of these CDL schools was going downhill. So the federal government came out and started closing a whole bunch of these CDL schools. And I think with Indiana and some of the other states, they’re looking at, “Okay, let’s start over. Let’s stop these bad CDL schools. Let’s encourage ones to focus on turning out quality drivers.” And I think one of my other episodes this month after the crash, I interviewed a trucker who was also an instructor at CDL schools and… Trucker Steve. And Trucker Steve has some strong opinions on what you should be doing to properly train truckers. And I think that’s good for all of us.

Ashley Napier: Yeah, certainly. I think one of the things that stood out to me, at least in this… So with the passing of this bill, the state of Indiana is able to criminalize any Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation violation. And we’re the first state in the country to pass a bill like this. Hopefully it’s all for good, but as you said, some good truck drivers and great truck drivers might be caught up in it.

David Craig: They made it a felony. I mean, for a driver to violate it, it’s a level six felony, so it’s a big deal. And for trucking companies, I think the fine is up to $50,000 if they knowingly allow truck drivers that aren’t qualified to drive a truck. And so Indiana is, I don’t know of any other state that has criminalized this process. And so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. Hopefully it ensures better quality drivers. Certainly, I think if there’s enough punishment there, I mean, if you don’t get punished for violating the rule, then why do you care? And so this hopefully is sufficient enough to punish people and deter people from violating the law.

Ashley Napier: Yeah, I’ll be anxious to see what the trickle-down effect is there. And if other states adopt bills similar, that’ll be interesting. Is there anything else that you wanted to speak about in terms of the recent changes here in Indiana? Because next episode, I want to talk about chameleon carriers. So we can kind of segue into that for our June episode, but anything that I might have missed today?

David Craig: No, I think it is, it’s a controversial thing. And so unfortunately, some of these bad drivers has caused bad wrecks, got a lot of publicity, so you see the government cracking down. Hopefully, it’s for the better, the good of all of us, non-domiciled drivers. Hopefully, we can all focus on better trained drivers. Chameleon carriers, it’s a hot topic as well. As you know, I think 60 Minutes just did something on it.

Ashley Napier: They sure did. Well, and you were interviewed, and I don’t know if that’s come out yet, but I know Channel 13 here in Indianapolis interviewed you recently regarding chameleon carriers. So I want to, rather than just ask you one or two questions about that, I’d like to have an episode dedicated to that just because we have handled several chameleon carrier cases, so I want to pick your brain on that a little bit more. But anybody listening, if you have any experience with chameleon carriers or your life’s been touched by it, we would love to hear from you. If you could email us at afterthecrashpodcast@ckflaw.com, we would love to hear your story and any knowledge that you have on that would be greatly appreciated. I think that’s all I have for today. David, do you have anything further?

David Craig: No. Thanks, Ashley. Great job as always.

Ashley Napier: No problem. Thank you all. Take care and we will see you on the next episode of After the Crash.

David Craig: This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website, ckflaw.com. Or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-Ask-David. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, Semi-Truck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.