FMCSA purges 10,000-plus CDL training providers, 100 ELDs

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has struck more than 10,000 commercial driver training providers from its Training Provider Registry since December 2025 and removed more than 100 noncompliant electronic logging devices from its approved list — numbers agency chief safety officer Steve Dowling presented Wednesday as proof of an enforcement campaign now spanning the full life cycle of a trucking operation.

Dowling, who took the safety post in August after careers with the California Highway Patrol and Covenant Logistics, laid out the figures in a keynote at the second annual WEX OTR Summit in Jacksonville, Florida. His framing was simple: stop unsafe and fraudulent actors before they enter the industry, not after they crash.

"If we want to protect the industry, we need to make sure that we start at the driver level and how they're trained," Dowling told attendees.

How many providers, and why?

The 10,000-plus removals since December 2025 represent a broad registry cleanup, and Dowling was careful to separate the figure from the emergency enforcement action FMCSA announced in August. That action targeted roughly 110 commercial driver training schools whose operations were linked to more than 5,000 drivers cited for English-language proficiency violations.

"Since December of '25, there have been more than 10,000 providers that have been removed from the training provider registry," Dowling said. He pledged continued audits: "You're going to continue to see us try to make sure that the schools are doing what they're supposed to do."

FMCSA is also tightening oversight of state CDL programs and third-party testers, so carriers can trust that any CDL — regardless of issuing state — reflects consistent federal standards. For carriers and forwarders, the practical consequence is a shrinking pool of entry-level drivers trained at federally recognized schools, at a time when capacity in truckload markets already hinges on driver supply.

What is happening to ELDs?

On electronic logging devices, which record hours of service, Dowling reported two numbers: more than 100 devices removed from the registered list and nearly 600 others blocked from approval in the first place.

"We've removed over 100 noncompliant ELDs from the registered device list, and we've prevented nearly 600 from making it onto the list entirely," he said. The agency's focus is systems that can be manipulated to hide hours-of-service violations.

"You can't go in and edit logs by making a phone call," Dowling said. "Anytime we hear of that, we're going and investigating." He advised motor carriers to verify their ELD vendors remain on the registered list — a compliance check every fleet can run today at no cost.

Can Motus stop chameleon carriers?

The registration front targets so-called chameleon carriers — companies that shut down and reopen under new identities to escape penalties. FMCSA's modernized registration system, Motus, verifies ownership and principal places of business, and Dowling cited cases of many trucking companies sharing one address or post office box.

"One location that maybe has 20 different DOT numbers coming out of a PO box in a location, that's a problem," he said. "There are thousands of people that we're keeping out of the industry because we've initiated [Motus]."

He offered no precise count of blocked applicants, nor a breakdown separating suspected fraud from applicants caught in technical failures — a gap worth noting given Motus's rocky rollout. Dowling said roughly 95% of registration activity was functioning based on data from the prior week, conceded the remaining failures were "not acceptable to us," and confirmed FMCSA has suspended the biennial registration update requirement while it fixes the system.

Federal cases and open questions

In a question-and-answer session, Dowling said FMCSA is increasingly coordinating with the Justice Department, the FBI and federal prosecutors on chameleon-carrier investigations that cross jurisdictions. "These investigations usually aren't just linear to where, okay, it's one violation to one carrier," he said, adding: "You're going to see cases that start coming out that are specifically combating against chameleon carriers." The agency is also acting on tips from carriers and industry representatives about suspicious operators and ELD providers.

Pressed on results, Dowling acknowledged the agency lacks the data to show its initiatives are cutting crashes. "Sometimes you have to be patient to be able to see if the things that you are doing works," he said. He could not recall a figure for non-domiciled CDL holders currently operating in the U.S., noting some remain legally eligible and the total shifts as states implement federal restrictions; FMCSA is auditing state licensing processes rather than relying on a national count.

What changes by 2027?

Looking ahead, Dowling said FMCSA is evaluating hours-of-service changes — including sleeper-berth provisions and the 14-hour duty window — and reworking its Safety Measurement System to concentrate enforcement on carriers most likely to crash rather than on minor administrative violations. "We can get more predictive by data analysis on who is more likely to crash," he said. Whether the promised crackdowns translate into measurable safety gains remains, by the agency's own admission, an open question until the data arrives.