Road Rules, Real Talk

A soaked dashboard, a flexing windshield, and a five-hour run that never started—sometimes the most revealing safety lesson begins before the truck even moves. We share the moment a bad pre-trip by someone else turned into lost hours, lost pay, and a hard stop, then trace the line from yard culture to public safety. The takeaway isn’t complicated: when professionals cut corners, everyone pays.

From there we widen the lens to a debate reshaping the industry: non-domiciled CDLs and who should control licensing standards. We break down what a non-domiciled CDL is supposed to mean, why recent audits found states issuing long-term licenses to short-term work authorizations, and how that misalignment erodes trust. New York’s eight-year license controversy becomes a case study for what happens when oversight fragments and interstate freight runs on uneven rules. We unpack current FMCSA moves, visa eligibility limits, and the real-world implications if hundreds of thousands of licenses face revocation.

Safety isn’t just policy—it’s practice. We lay out clear weather rules drivers can live by—ice means no dice, park it if you can’t hold 40 mph, and never gamble when the ditches are filling. We also get candid about the pressures of ELD clocks, detention pay that slips through the cracks, and the fatigue that comes from being told to “go” the minute a 10 or 34 resets. Federalizing CDL issuance won’t fix every pain point, but tighter, uniform vetting and license durations matched to lawful presence would raise the floor everywhere and protect the public, drivers, and carriers.

Listen for a straight-shot mix of road stories, safety habits, and policy analysis that connects the yard to the highway and the DMV to your logbook. Then jump in the conversation—should CDLs be federalized, and what’s the single change that would make our roads safer? If this resonated, follow, share with a driver who needs to hear it, and leave a review so we can keep this rolling.

Go to studio411 facebook page for photos and a more in-depth conversation.

Chapters

• 0:00 Kicking Off The Highway Edition
• 3:40 Perfectionism, Posting, And Platform Support
• 4:28 Listener Support And Donations
• 5:12 Professionalism On The Job
• 9:20 A Dangerous Windshield And Lost Pay
• 14:20 Safety First: Weather Rules That Save Lives
• 17:40 Getting Sick And A Wild Telehealth Visit
• 23:58 Hot Topic: Non‑Domiciled CDLs Defined
• 28:20 Should CDLs Be Federalized
• 33:20 New York’s Eight‑Year License Problem
• 38:10 Visa Limits And FMCSA Rulemaking
• 42:20 Fraud, Funding, And State Compliance
• 46:00 Federal Oversight Vs State Control

Transcript

Kicking Off The Highway Edition

SPEAKER_00 0:11

You're listening to the Highway Edition of Studio Four One One out of the basement, out of the studio, out of Northeast Pennsylvania, here is your host, Rich Kapaka. Rich Kapaka.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah, baby, welcome to the show, Studio 411, baby.

Perfectionism, Posting, And Platform Support

Listener Support And Donations

Professionalism On The Job

A Dangerous Windshield And Lost Pay

Safety First: Weather Rules That Save Lives

Getting Sick And A Wild Telehealth Visit

Hot Topic: Non‑Domiciled CDLs Defined

Should CDLs Be Federalized

New York’s Eight‑Year License Problem

Visa Limits And FMCSA Rulemaking

Fraud, Funding, And State Compliance

Federal Oversight Vs State Control

SPEAKER_00 1:09

The Highway Edition. All right, yeah, welcome to the show here. Studio 411, the Highway Edition. I'm your host, Rich. Thanks for joining me on this cold December 20th, 2025. I got a lot going on here. When I say a lot, I got a lot going on. I'm just the one-man show, so I had to I had to do a lot of crap to get this to be where I could operate it as a one-man show. As you can tell, I'm still a little under the weather, feeling pretty good. Not too bad. I'm getting better. But I got audio here, I got my outline here, I got my mixing board here, I got all my research here that I could put on my laptop here for the program that's recording all of this. So I have a lot going on. It took me a little while to figure this out to where I'm not making a lot of mistakes. I'm gonna make a few, that's for sure. But we got it going on. I got it going on. I think I do. I hope I do. I'm trying to make this the best show possible. Uh I gotta stop trying to be perfect. Sorry. You're gonna get a couple, you're gonna get a couple coughs out of me here and there, but uh not like the last time, that's for sure. Uh but yeah, uh I gotta stop trying to make this show to be absolutely perfect when it comes to uh the production of it. And I try to make it perfect the best that I can, and I have to realize it's a it's I'm just a one-man show, and I'm doing the best I can here, and uh that's why I don't post a lot of shows, because if they're not perfect, I'm not posting them. And uh from what I'm told by some of my fans out there, not that I have fans, but some of my the people that that listen, I said just post it, man. You know, as long as you're getting your point across and you're uh you're being truthful and honest, that's all that matters. So that's what I'm doing. That is what I'm doing. This is the highway edition of uh Studio 411. The other edition I have that I'm doing is my true crime show. Also, it's on the same channel. Uh, I have to get on YouTube and and uh get playlists going. I'm still trying to figure that. It's not trying to figure it out, it's trying to get the time to actually do it. I'd rather post a show and then uh over the Christmas holiday, I have a lot of time off and I'll get to doing playlists and separating them. And uh that's what I got going on. I got a lot going on with this show, that's for sure. Um, but thanks for listening. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget, if you like the show, uh give it a like, give it a thumbs up, uh, subscribe. If you're listening on Spotify, uh give us a re uh a review, the best review you think I should get. And if you really like the show, hit that donate button and uh you could donate to the show. It's all a great help. It helps me keep keep every everything going, especially with uh Spotify, because some of the stuff I do have to pay for, other than the equipment. I don't mind spending the money on that. But if I'm not getting a viewership on other platforms, I'm gonna drop them because I got to pay for some of that stuff. But so far, so good. Topics today here on the highway edition of 411. Uh, non-domicile CDLs. We're gonna talk a little bit about that. That's the hot topic here uh over the past uh year since Trump has been in office, maybe a little before that, too. And uh the reclassification of some Mary Jane, marijuana. How is that gonna affect the CDL holder and the companies? How is that gonna affect everything? But first off, I want to start out with some professionalism out here on the road, within your company, within your wherever you work. It doesn't matter if you're a truck driver or if you are a warehouse worker or a machinist, manufacturing, a labor construction. It doesn't matter. We all have to be professional out here. Uh most of us, we are professional, not all of us, and I would safely say us older folks in in the trucking industry still have pride in what we do. Not only the trucking industry, like I said, other industries. We have appreciation for what we have at home and on the job site. And we realize that what we have, it didn't come from being lazy, lack of desire, dedication, or incompetence, or just plain out disregard for the well-being of our fellow co-workers. That's not how we got to where we are today for us folks over, I would say about 35 years old. It's sad to say that uh a lot of uh the younger folks, they don't have no pride in what they do as far as work goes. Gimme, gimme, gimme. And uh it it doesn't matter how they get it, it's always give me, give me, gimme. And why I'm bringing this up is because for most of you that sorry, excuse me, a little cottage there. Most of you that listened to the show the last time, I was under the weather, wasn't feeling well. Uh I had Monday and Tuesday off of last week. I called in Tuesday, said I'd come to work. I went back Wednesday, which was a day too soon. And they gave me the day off, too. They told me not to stay home. And I said, okay, I'll stay home. No sooner did I hit that hang up button and call button on my phone. The phone was ringing again. Could you come in? We got somebody who called off. I was like, oh man. I said, All right, I'll come in. But I went in and um I was feeling I wasn't feeling bad that Wednesday. Thursday started feeling a little rough, and um that's when things went to shit. It wasn't because I wasn't feeling well, I had to take my tractor down to B service, down to our shop to get it serviced. Okay. Uh when I did that, I had to get an Uber back up to my domicile and get home. Uh, it's I'm usually in bed the night before when I go to work, usually be about 4 or 4:30. And uh that night I didn't get to bed till about 6 or 6:30. Probably closer to 7 o'clock, to be honest with you. Uh, I'd still had, you know, by the time I I got everything done, I had to get home and, you know, get get a shower, get something to eat. And uh I had to get up at midnight to be on the road for the next day. So I get up at midnight, they give me a truck to use. Like I just said, mine was in the shop, so they gave me two numbers they said that was in the yard, ready to roll. And um I get up to the yard, one is locked. All right, well, I said to myself, well, there's another one here. Hopefully, that one is unlocked, and I can get on the road. I do a pre-trip on the outside, walk around, do my walk around, check the fluids, good. I get in it and I fire it up. The dashboard is wet, soaked. It's like, what the freak? Now, that night we had major, major windstorm and rain. It was brutal outside. It was rough. Uh, it was it was a tough night for for driving. It would have been for me, and you'll see why. And um, I'm wondering why this dash is wet. Wipe it off, clean it off, and a big gust of wind comes, and the uh windshield is getting pushed away from the frame of the truck. It's like, what the freak? From the top left-hand corner of the windshield to about halfway over, you can see daylight through it, and from the top left corner all the way down to the bottom was not attached. It wasn't attached, it was about an inch, inch and a half off of the frame of the truck. So I'm not taking that truck. Somebody had driven that truck the day before. And this is where I'm starting. I I am pissed off now. I'm pissed off because I I'm not feeling well. I'm coming into work to do my job, and I cannot. Um, so I call, make a phone call. They don't have another truck for me right at that time. The night guy tells me to go home, wait for a phone call from a regular manager, wait for the phone call. I get that call about uh 10 after four. Now I'm already up for four hours. By the time I get home, I have to have something eat because I have to take my medicine for this frickin' cough and all that bull jat bullshit. I have a half hour from home both ways, so an hour. So I get to call. I'm told to come in and uh and grab this tractor. This guy will be back in an hour. And this is this is at 4:30, about four o'clock, 4:10, 410. I'll be back in about an hour and take his truck. Okay. Now I'm only a half hour away. I wait a couple minutes. I had to get fuel in my truck, my personal vehicle, got fuel, headed up there. I got up there about, I don't know, quarter to five or so. And uh, I'm waiting, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. Guys still not showing up, waiting and waiting and waiting, still not showing up. 6 30, not there. And I'm like wondering what the frig. I'm already up for six hours, didn't get on the road yet, and I got a five-hour ride to my delivery and an hour and a half wait to get unloaded, and a five-hour ride back. Uh, I was like, this isn't happening. This guy's nowhere to be seen. Then finally I see him. And he didn't even drop his trailer yet from getting back. He's lollygagging in his truck tractor. He's got to take shit from his tractor to put in his personal vehicle. At that point, I was like, nope, I'm not doing this. I'm already uh awake for way too long to be starting my day. Good thing I didn't put myself on duty. Or if I did put myself on duty, they all it didn't matter at that point, to be honest with you. But I I I told him I'm going home. Uh, I'm not doing this. Uh the the guy that was I was supposed to take that truck off of, knows he knew I was taking it because I went and told him, I was I need your truck. You gotta hurry up. No sense of urgency whatsoever out of that guy. And uh I went home. I went home. I don't know if the load got delivered or not. I have no idea, no clue. Um this is why I say there's no professionalism out there anymore. There's not a whole bunch. Whoever drove that tractor with the windshield like that is uh incompetent or just plain frickin' lazy. That tractor should have been written up and taken to get fixed. Should have been. And it wasn't. Somebody could have got really, really hurt. And if that guy drove that tractor like that, he he is the one that possibly could have been hurt. That's not cool, man. Not cool at all. The driver who was me, if I didn't notice that, I could have been hurt really bad. The public could have been hurt really bad. We don't do shit like that. We we cannot afford not to do our due diligence when it comes to this stuff out here on the road. We can't do it. As a professional driver, you have to do your job. You have to. Because if you don't, people get hurt, they could die, they could get killed. Easy peasy. This is not a game out here. If you're a new guy coming into the industry and you're only here for uh a short period of time, you're you know you're not gonna make it a career. Think about the guys that are making it a career, the guys that have been doing it forever and a day. Think about the fact that your mistakes, intentional mistakes, to be honest with you, that was intentional. That was plain laziness with that windshield. That could cost a guy, it costed me a load, costed me a day's pay, it cost me fuel money to get up to work and back home. I lived 30 miles away. So I came up, I went back down at 60, I did that twice, 120 miles. I put on my truck, my personal vehicle, and I didn't make no money. There's no consideration out here at all in this industry for other drivers when it comes to the folks under 35 years old. You have to do a proper post and pre-trip. You have to do it. If you don't do it, you're doing yourself a disservice. And you're putting the jeopardy of your fellow or go your fellow drivers at risk. You're putting their safety at risk and the public safety at risk. You're putting the account and the company at risk. One bad accident could be one too many for a company. You don't want any accidents at all, but one bad accident could be fatal to a company. It could destroy a company, it could put a company out of business. You put a company out of business, now you're putting a whole bunch of workers out of business. That's just the way it goes, man. I don't care how big a company is, eventually things like that keep happening, eventually the money's gonna run dry, and they cannot afford these lawsuits, and they're gonna close the fucking doors. And they were all out of a job. Some of us, you know, like myself, I've been here 11 years. I know guys that's been here for over 20 years with this company. 20 years shot to shit because of somebody's stupid, dumbass mistake. Do your job out there, not only in the trucking industry, everywhere. Everywhere. That's what I got on that subject. I'm gonna leave it alone from that point. I'm not gonna touch it no more. So just do your job out there, guys. That's all I ask. That's all I ask. Nobody's perfect. All right, let's move on. We're moving on. Last night the weather sucked. We had a massive, massive windstorm. Uh, it rained. Oh, the rain was horrendous. It went from 50 degrees yesterday to 20 degrees in a matter of about an hour and a half, two hours. It was, it was it was brutal. We had flash freezing. Flash freezing. I have I don't think I've ever seen that before. A lot of black ice out there on the roads. Sorry. A lot of black ice out there on the roads. Snow. Uh, you know, my rule is if there's ice, no dice. I don't roll. More than four inches of snow on the road, I don't go. That's all there is to it. It's that simple. And I think that's a pretty damn good rule. And if I'm caught in something while I'm out on the road and I have to drive slower than 40 miles an hour to stay safe, I park it. Simple. Simple rules. If I start seeing other cars and tractor trailers in the ditch because of the weather, I park it. I'm not gonna be that guy. Not gonna be that guy. So that's where I'm at with that. Uh I'm feeling better. I'm feeling better. My sickness is uh, it's all right. We're getting there. Um I'm gonna tell you. Excuse me. I'm sorry, but you're gonna we're gonna have a little uh a little coughing here. A little coughing here once in a while. While sorry, I'll try to edit it out, but I don't know if I'm gonna be able to, but I'll try. But what had happened was you know, I had last uh Monday, Tuesday off, Sunday I started feeling like shit, and that's when I called the doctor. I called my doctor to make the appointment, and he was all filled up for Monday. So they gave me a virtual appointment for the following for that Monday with another doctor in the facility. I know I don't go to the doctor, period. I go there once a year for my annual physical and my dot physical every two years. That's the extent of extent of it. You know, I I I don't get sick. This is the first I've been sick in probably 20 years, to be honest with you. Seriously, I really don't get sick like this, but I'm sick anyway. So virtual appointment. I'm thinking, you know, they'll call you, answer the phone, give them your symptoms, they give you their their uh analysis and uh be on your merry way, you know, give you some medication. Well, it didn't go like that. I'm in bed and uh I have no shirt on. I'm sweating a little bit. I got the cold sweats. I got my blanket down a little bit, my chest is shown, you know. And uh I get a text, click on this link to join your your your your uh virtual appointment. I click on the link and I see this female. I said, Holy shit, this is a video call. So that was embarrassing. I look like hell. I'm like flashing this woman my my freaking chest, and I'm nothing to look at. And uh, you know, it was embarrassing. And she made it, you know, she says, uh, you know, you're gonna have to, you know, be bedridden, you know, stay in bed for the next five to seven days till this passes, and that's not happening. I gotta get I have to work. I can't stay in bed for five, seven days. And uh she says to me, well, if I was if I was to prescribe something to you, what would you want to get prescribed to you? Now, for me, if I was a doctor, I wouldn't ask somebody that I would know what to subscribe, I wouldn't ask for any suggestions, you know. Uh, that was kind of baffling and disturbing at the same time. Um, but I did say because my son was on uh steroids, I said, uh, how about some steroids? So my I told her my son was sick and you know, he took steroids and it helped him out. And uh she says, sure, I'll do that. It's like you gotta be kidding me, really? You know, maybe she was fishing to see if I would uh want some oxycontins or Vicitins or or something like that, but uh I don't I don't do pain pills. But uh, you know, what the hell, man? I could I I saw that and uh or she's I she did that. I couldn't believe it. Could not believe it. But you know, it is what it is, and uh, I'm starting to feel a lot better. I'm taking some vitamins, some a lot of vitamin C tablets. Uh, I got one more day to steroids to go, and uh, you know, a lot of excuse me, a lot of OJ. But we're getting better. This cough that I'm having now, this was like a constant thing. For two days, it wouldn't stop. Would not stop. My back hurt so bad. But anyway, let's move on. Let's get on. Let's get on to uh let's let's move on to our trucking stuff here. You know, let's let's move on. There's there's a few things like I said earlier, caught my attention while I was out there on the road. And um uh the the hottest topic out there right now is the domiciled CDLs, non-domiciled CDLs, uh, and the uh speaking uh and reading of English. Um there are the two hot topics right now out there. Um before I want to I get to that though, I I want to say, you know, I listen to a lot of a lot of trucking shows out there, radio shows and podcasts, and uh there's one I listen to uh pretty consistently just about every day. And this show always has somebody on the on their show that uh they say that they're they're advocating for the truck driver. They're they're they're they're part of these different organizations, uh, American Trucking Association, OOIDA, um different organizations that are trying to make the trucking industry better. And some of them, some of them are asking for money for donations to keep uh you know their their movement going. But I I don't I have not seen anything done as far as trying to help us truckers out. What is being done out there to help a truck driver out, whether you're an owner operator or a company driver, it seems like things just keep getting worse and worse. We are so micromanaged by by the FMCSA and not only the FMCSA, but our companies. And it's it's freaking annoying, man. You know, it they make they're making it harder and harder for us to do our job. Uh, these ELDs, they are dictating to us when we have to take our break, you know, what how much sleep we're getting, uh when we could drive, when we can't drive. And when the company looks at your hours, well, your 10-hour break is up, go. Go. Your 34 is up, go. We need you on the road, go. I get it, it's the industry. But it's getting a little out of control as far as how micromanaged this industry is getting towards the truck driver. It's not like it used to be, not like it used to be. Uh, I've only been doing this 11 years as far as my class A goes. I've been driving professionally for about 25, 26 years, actually. And um, even when I drove Motor Coach, we had a lot of freedom out there. Even though you had people in the back of that thing, when you drop your people off, you had time to do what you had to do. You had a lot of downtime, and it was nice. And we got paid for our downtime. I don't get paid for my downtime. I get stop pay, and that's it. I could sit somewhere for four hours and I might not get detention time. I'm just gonna get the stop pay. And I think that's bullshit. It doesn't happen all the time, but sometimes it does happen. And I don't know if they forget to put it in there or it's done intentionally. I know for a fact, the one account I was on, it was done intentionally. They wouldn't give you give you your uh detention time, and you'd have to uh fight with them to get it when you see your paycheck. But that's not what we're talking about now. We're talking about domiciled CDL holders. Uh, what is a non-domicid CDL holder? A non-domicid CDL holder is a commercial license issued by a state to an individual who is legally authorized to work in that state or the United States, but does not have a permanent residence in that state or the United States. So you have to have a permanent residence to be domiciled. Most of these foreigners that are coming in and getting their CDLs, they are not permanent residents. That is a non-domicid CDL holder. Should CDLs be nationalized? I've said this a couple times before when uh I was doing the show with Big Jim. Uh, I think it should be. Uh, some people say that it it already is, but it's not. It really isn't. Uh, if it was, the states wouldn't be issuing CDLs to anyone. All of that should be excuse me, all of that should be done by the federal government. If you have a state license, say you have a California license, and you want to get your CDL, your class A, class B, uh, that should all be done through the federal government. It shouldn't be done through the state. It shouldn't be. Uh for several reasons. Uh the biggest reason is we don't know who you are, to be honest with you. If you're a non-domiciled uh person, you're you're only here on a work visa, which we're gonna get into that, and you want your CDL, you apply for your CDL through the state. California don't give a shit. They're gonna give it to you, no matter what. But if you apply for it through the federal government, bypass the state, the federal government has the means to vet you better, to see who you are, where you're from, if you're on the terrorist watch list. I don't know if if the states have that capability or not. I'm sure they could request that information from the federal government if they do not, if they don't have that information, and they should be requesting that information, especially for all these people that are getting the not non-domicid CDLs. And this is why I say they should federalize it. Uh somebody comes in, they get a uh 60-day, say a 60-day or a one-year work visa. Okay. Federal government sees that, they're gonna issue you your CDL after you take a test and pass your road test, and you can read the signs and speak English in English, you get your CDL for one year for however long your work visa is for. And once that year is up, you're done. You're done. That's the way this should work. That's the way this should work. In New York, they were issuing licenses, eight-year, eight-year CDL licenses to non-domicide CDL holders who only had a one-year or 60-day work visa. How does that work? And why did it work? Why were they able to do that? If that was monitored by the federal government, that never would have happened. Ever. That was all done under the Biden administration. And I think once Trump got in there, they fast tracked a lot of CDLs in that manner. 100% wrong, without a doubt. They're saying we need we have a driver shortage, they say. There is no driver shortage of truck drivers. I'm sorry, there is not. Freight sucks right now. It's horrible. We are in a major freight recession right now. There's a lot of trucks that uh a lot of excuse me, that a lot of people bought during COVID that are just sitting on the side of the road. They're just sitting on the side of the road or in a driveway parking lot or whatever, because then people made their money and they saw it was starting to dry up and they got out of the business. Or I don't know, maybe they tried to make it work and they couldn't make it work. I don't know. But either way, we're not we're we there is no driver shortage. I'm sorry, I'll say that till I'm blue in the face. Now, once we get rid of half of these non-domiciled CDL holders and these illegals that shouldn't be driving a truck, I think possibly, maybe we might be on the brink of being short drivers, but I don't think so. I don't think so. So I think that this should happen and why. Why? Uh for one, I think it would cut down on a lot of fraud. I think it would cut down on a lot of fraud as far as all this money that is being um given to these states for their transportation and highway uh funding. I think it would cut back. Uh right now, New York is getting$73 million a year. I think I had it pulled up here. Uh wrong mouse. See, I got a lot of crap going on here. Gotta remember what I'm doing there. Uh that's California. Uh let's see here. I know I saw a 73. I can't remember. Yeah, it was 73 million. They're getting. Let's see here. I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking. Bear with me here, folks. Bear with me. Uh uh uh uh uh uh I think it's up here. Let me see. It was up here. Yeah, right here. I'll pull it up here for you as and is well, and I'll highlight it. There we go. And I'll highlight it here. On Friday, December 12th, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened to pull$73 million in highway funding from New York, saying that uh an FMCSA, an audit of non-domicile CDLs issued by the New York Department of Motor Vehicles found more than half had been issued illegally. Is that$73 million really going towards New York's uh infrastructure on their highways? I don't know. It could be. It could be. But the here's here's what I was talking about before, too. See, I moved that mouse and it wasn't working. But here. Here's what I was talking about before here. What New York does if an applicant comes in and they have a work authorization for 30 days, 60 days, one year, New York automatically issues them an eight-year commercial driver's license. Duffy said during a press conference. That's contrary to the law. No shit. That is insane. That's insanity. And by the way, uh, I'm getting this from right here. Heavy trucking news. That's where I'm getting it from. That's where this article has come from. Right here. Out of 200 sampled records, 107 were issued in violation of federal law. Failure rate of over 53%. The DMV's system defaulted to issuing eight-year license to foreign drivers for non-real ID licenses, regardless of when their legal status expires. I can't even I can't get a license for eight years in Pennsylvania. Four years, that's it. Then I have to get it renewed. New York issued commercial driver's license to foreign drivers without providing any evidence that it had verified their current lawful presence in the United States. Duffy has given the state 30 days to revoke all the illegal CDLs, pause any new license or learner's permit from being issued, and conduct a comprehensive audit. That's the stuff that I say is crazy. That that's crazy shit right there. And whoever was giving them CDLs, they should be fired, fired, out, gone, see ya, you're out of here, fool. And that is not happening. It's not happening. And it should. It should happen. Uh, it's a shame. It's a shame that we have to do this. We have to go through this. And uh, same article. An appeals court in November temporarily put a halt to the federal motor carrier safety administration's emergency interim final rules severely restricting states' ability to issue non-domicided commercial driver's license. Now it looks like the agency will go through the full rulemaking process. Good. Good. They should. In the September, oh man, I'm sorry, guys. But in the September emergency rule, FMCSA limited non-domicile CDL eligibility to individuals on. Let me pull this up again for you. I'll show you here real quick. And I'll highlight what I'm reading here. Where's my freaking cursor? Right there. Highlight that. In the September emergency rule, FMCSA limited non domicile CDL eligibility to individuals on H2A, H2B, or E2 visas. It excluded other categories such as asylum seekers, refugees, and deferred action for childhood arrivals. Who previously have been eligible for non-domiciled CDLs. I don't know what's this H2A, H2B, all this shit is. I don't know what that is. And I'm not going to look it up. Sorry. That'll be for the next show. I'll make a note of it. Uh that's pretty good there. Approximately, right here. Approximately 200,000 people will no longer be able to hold these licenses and therefore be out of work as a result of this rule, according to a summary of the petition. Well, that's good. Because we don't want them on the road. We don't want them on the road, because 90% of them can't read right or speak English. I wonder if the if somebody's pocketing some of this cash. I I wonder. I wonder. I wonder. Let's get rid of that. That's it on that. But that's the kind of shenanigans that's that's going on with this stuff. This docket is uh, let's see, FMCSC kept the public comment docket open through November 28 of 2025, signaling that it intends to finalize the role regardless of the ongoing litigation. What's the problem with non-domiciled licenses? As the American Trucking Association explained in a blog post, a non-domiciled CDL is given to someone who is legally allowed to work in the U.S. but doesn't permanently live in the state issuing the license, often for nationals working under temporary U.S. work authorization. These licenses can't be issued to Mexican and Canadian drivers since they're already covered by agreement between our countries, but they must meet the same rigorous federal testing standards as all CDLs. The problem is that federal audits have shown that several states aren't living up to those standards. California, Oregon, New Mexico, Arizona, Pennsylvania. Big time, big time. Not living up to them standards, them expectations. Where do you stand on this? I'd love to know your opinion. I would love for someone to come on the show, the next show. We'll do a little phone call and we'll have a conversation about this subject. Because this is the hot topic right now. This is this is a big thing. And um I would love to see it get certified rectified and let the government take full control of the CDL system. Uh they already, you know, FMCSA already has their hands in our shit. They already uh, you know, that they're the ones regulating most of this stuff. You know? Um a more proper and more thorough vetting of a CDL applicant would be done if the feds took over. Uh, I truly believe that. So I would hope so anyway. The federal government already has the list of potential terrorists that are not allowed in the country. Terrorist watch list. The states, I don't think they they have that capability, like I said earlier, but I think, excuse me, but I think that you know they would request that list. And they should, if they're going to be continuing to be giving out these CDLs. It would it would prevent these democratic states from handling CDLs, handing out CDLs to anyone that they please. Probably save the states a lot of money. Fund the states to maintain the upkeep of these inspection stations and these weigh stations. I don't think the states should have their hands in in inspecting or doing uh inspections on the vehicles. I don't think they should have their hands in uh uh weighing a vehicle. I think that the way that that should be ran was if there's violations found and there's fines given out, the federal government should get some of that revenue and the state should get some of that revenue. What percentage? I couldn't tell. I'm not even gonna think guess the that. But I think that would be a a a decent way to get this better. I really do. I think that the federal government should do the training, they should be doing the testing, vetting potential CDL applicants. That authority should be under federal guidelines, and federal employees should be conducting that task. I don't think the state should have anything to do with that other than issuing a driver's license out to the general public to operate a vehicle under 21,000 pounds. The drivers cross state lines the majority of the time, whether they are holding the CDL legally or not. They cross state lines. When you cross state lines, it's like uh I look at that as far as kind of like being something like uh let's say uh somebody gets abducted, a child gets abducted in Pennsylvania, okay? And the local government, local police force, state police, they're called in and they're looking into the situation. Not the FBI. Why? Because that crime did not cross state lines yet. If they tracked this person who did the abduct abduction and it crossed state lines, now the federal government has the authorization to jump in and take the case over. Unless, if it did not cross state lines, unless the FBI is called in to assist and given the authoration, authorization to do so. And I believe that that is the way this should work. You cross the state line in the CDL, you are automatically under federal guidelines. And you are automatically, it should be uh you should be uh monitored by the federal, by the federal department of transportation, FMCSA. They they should be conducting all the testing, all everything, all of it. Craziness. I'm your host, Rich. That's all I got for today. Let me know what you got going on in your mind on this situation. Let me know. I want to know your thoughts. Send me that email right here at RGKAPALKA. I am your host, Rich Kapalka. We'll see you on the next show. Have a good one. I'm out of here. Thanks for listening.