Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced his department is investigating last week’s deadly motor vehicle crash in Florida, in which Harjinder Singh, an undocumented immigrant, made an illegal U-turn in a semi-truck on the Florida Turnpike and killed three people in an oncoming minivan.
Preliminary results of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration investigation show Singh, the driver of the 18-wheeler, failed an English language proficiency exam. He answered two of 12 questions correctly and identified one out of four road signs.
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“This crash was a preventable tragedy directly caused by reckless decisions and compounded by despicable failures. Non-enforcement and radical immigration policies have turned the trucking industry into a lawless frontier, resulting in unqualified foreign drivers improperly acquiring licenses to operate 40-ton vehicles,” Duffy said in a Department of Transportation press release.
The DOT is investigating both Singh and the motor carrier company involved, White Hawk Carriers Inc.
The initial findings of the FMCSA investigation, which began two days after the crash on Aug. 14, have shown that both Washington state and New Mexico broke federal motor carrier safety rules, according to the DOT press release. Washington issued Singh a regular full-term commercial driver’s license in July 2023, though individuals without American legal status are not eligible for CDLs.
New Mexico police ticketed Singh for speeding in July of this year but did not conduct an ELP exam. The preliminary investigation results found that New Mexico was not enforcing the DOT’s June order that truck drivers who fail ELP exams must be removed from their roles, according to the DOT press release. Duffy’s increased restrictions on truck driver qualifications follow President Donald Trump’s April executive order titled “Enforcing Commonsense Rules of the Road for America’s Truck Drivers,” which focused on enforcing trucking laws, including English proficiency requirements for drivers.
“If states had followed the rules, this driver would never have been behind the wheel and three precious lives would still be with us,” Duffy said in the press release. “We will use every tool at our disposal to hold these states and bad actors accountable. President Trump and I will restore safety to our roads. The families of the deceased deserve justice.”
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A DOT official told the Washington Examiner that the Florida Department of Transportation is complying with the U.S. DOT. The official said the investigation “could take weeks.”
The initial findings of the investigation also show that in July 2024, California issued Singh “a term-limited/non-domiciled” commercial driver’s license. The FMCSA is currently investigating whether California broke federal law by issuing the license, according to the press release.