Commercial driving school in Washington, Oregon bribed independent testers to get passing grades for failing students: report

Am alleged bribery scheme involving cash-stuffed envelopes, unqualified instructors, and fraudulent testing has rocked Washington’s commercial driver licensing system and received new attention in the wake of a deadly crash in Florida allegedly caused by an illegal immigrant who couldn’t speak English.

According to a May investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive, Skyline CDL School, a truck-driving academy with branches in Washington and Oregon, allegedly funneled cash bribes to an independent state-certified examiner in exchange for passing grades. The alleged scheme allowed scores of unqualified drivers to obtain commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs), bypassing federal safety requirements and putting dangerous drivers behind the wheel of semitrucks.

Investigators say bundles of $520 to $530 in cash were paper clipped to sticky notes bearing student birthdates, then shipped via UPS to independent state tester Jason Hodson in Arlington, Washington. Hodson allegedly entered passing test results for Skyline students who never showed up for exams, or in some cases never tested at all.

Between April 2023 and September 2024, Hodson recorded tests for 877 drivers, 822 of them Skyline students. Retesting revealed that 80 per of those who re-took exams failed, confirming they were not qualified to get the licenses.

The Washington Department of Licensing revoked the credentials of 110 drivers, including 102 from Skyline, and terminated Hodson’s contract. Skyline’s Washington license was formally canceled in March 2024, though its Oregon school in Hillsboro remains open.

State regulators accuse Skyline of:

• Employing unqualified instructors, some of whom lacked valid licenses or spoke little English.
• Ignoring federal English proficiency rules, which require drivers to understand road signs and communicate with officials.
• Falsifying training records and failing to document student hours or skills.
• Steering students to Hodson, even if it required a four-hour drive from Vancouver to Arlington.

A 2024 whistleblower exposed the alleged scheme, providing photos of cash-filled envelopes, spreadsheets allegedly used to falsify pass/fail rates, and text messages between Hodson and students. According to the Washington State Checkbook, Skyline CDL received over $24,000 in taxpayer funds. This school was suspended in June.

The Skyline case underscores long-standing concerns about so-called “CDL mills,” cheap trucking schools that churn out poorly trained drivers to meet industry demand. Regulators estimate that over 188,000 Washington residents and 92,000 Oregonians currently hold CDLs, raising questions about how many slipped through weak oversight.

Those concerns intensified after a deadly Florida highway crash linked to Washington’s licensing failures. The truck driver, Harjinder Singh, was in the US illegally and failed basic English proficiency tests, yet Washington improperly issued him a full-term CDL in 2023. He has since been charged with vehicular manslaughter after an illegal U-turn left three people dead.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blasted Washington, California, and New Mexico for ignoring federal rules, calling the failures “despicable.” He warned that states issuing CDLs to illegal immigrants or unqualified drivers could lose federal transportation funding.

“States MUST FOLLOW THE RULES,” Duffy said in a statement on X. “If they had, this driver would NEVER have been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us. The families of the deceased deserve justice.”

Duffy announced a federal audit of CDL licensing nationwide and pledged stricter enforcement under the Trump administration to prevent “lawless” licensing practices from endangering the public.

Skyline faces ongoing scrutiny in Oregon, where regulators fined the school for failing to disclose disciplinary action in Washington. Further enforcement actions may follow.