MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The accident on I-68 in January that took the life of a Pennsylvania man is part of a larger national issue, according to a national trucking organization.
American Truckers United spokesman Cliff Bates said an increasing number of non-English speaking truck drivers are on the road making the roads as dangerous as they have ever been.
Investigators said the driver in the fatal Jan. 19 crash in Monongalia County, Sukhjinder Singh, had to have the help of an interpreter during the course of the investigation. Singh was reportedly driving too fast for the snowy conditions and was also accused of hitting another trucker about two miles before the crash on the I-68 Cheat Lake bridge that sent Kevin Lataille over the bridge to his death.
“These stories never make it to a national level, so it’s important for you guys to continue to push this,” Bates said on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town.”
Bates attributes the influx of foreign-born drivers to the country to a 2016 rule change by the U.S. Department of Transportation distributed in a memo eliminating the policy requirement to take drivers out of service for non-compliance with English Language Proficiency rules.
“There is a secondary ecosystem that exists that is really non-citizen drivers, and we’re trying to figure out who,” Bates said.
Bates said during the Biden administration he believes the policy loophole was used to bring truckers, many of whom cannot speak English, into the country. Based on the policy letter used by law enforcement, they have no authority to remove truck drivers from service who read and speak English.
“And then in 2021 that was the vehicle. There were other vehicles to get people into this country, but that allows them to operate on our roads and not be put out of service,” Bates said.
The memo was issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for use during safety inspections and audits. Because it is a policy, it could easily be stopped by the President through the use of an executive order.
“The federal never changed; the memo was issued,” Bates said. “The memo needs to be retracted, and the President needs to issue an Executive Order telling these states, You need to follow the federal law, and if you pull someone over and they can’t read English, you need to put them out of service.”
Logistics is a very important business that can become dangerous very quickly if drivers are not properly trained or can’t read signs or interact with the police. In addition to skill, truckers have to be able to read and understand important information about weight limits, road restrictions, and detours.
“There are appropriate jobs for non-citizens in this country,” Bates said. “We need non-citizens to fill certain jobs, but driving an 80-thousand-pound missile down the interstate when you can’t read the signs is not appropriate.”