ELOY, Ariz.—For more than a decade, Daniel Lawson has driven big rigs up and down the West Coast. With his experience and commercial license, he is well-versed in the rules of the road.
Above all, he knows that making a U-turn on a bustling highway is a risk no driver should ever take.
“You find an off-ramp. You find an overpass—an underpass,” Lawson said after filling the gas tank of his tractor-trailer at Love’s Travel Stop in Eloy, Arizona.
“Whatever you do, you never try to turn around on a street.”
So Lawson said that when he learned that a foreign-born truck driver made an illegal U-turn on a Florida highway on Aug. 12, claiming three lives, he was unsurprised.
He sees illegal moves happening often, he said—truck drivers from other countries trying to navigate street signs in English that they can barely understand.
Fatal Encounter
On Aug. 12, state troopers responded to a crash on Florida’s Turnpike in St. Lucie County, about 50 miles north of West Palm Beach.The crash involved a Chrysler minivan with three passengers and a large tractor-trailer, driven by Harjinder Singh, a 28-year-old Indian.
Singh faces three counts of vehicular homicide. He was denied bail at his arraignment in St. Lucie County court.
State troopers determined that Singh had entered the United States illegally by crossing the border from Mexico in 2018, the Florida Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles department reported.
Singh then obtained a California commercial driver’s license (CDL).
In a statement, David Kerner, director of the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, called Singh’s alleged actions while operating a commercial tractor-trailer “shocking and criminal.”
‘Blatant Disregard’
On Aug. 18, the American Trucking Associations (ATA), which represents more than 37,000 members, issued a statement condemning the incident as a tragedy that should not have happened.“While an investigation is underway, this blatant disregard for highway safety and the rules of the road makes clear he should never have been behind the wheel to begin with,” ATA Chief Operating Officer Dan Horvath said.
The incident highlights the importance of the Trump administration’s efforts to ensure that drivers can read and speak English, which is necessary for driving commercial vehicles across state lines, Horvath added.
In an April 28 order, Trump wrote that his administration will “enforce the law to protect the safety of American truckers, drivers, passengers, and others, including by upholding the safety enforcement regulations that ensure that anyone behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle is properly qualified and proficient in [the U.S.] national language, English.”
At the time of the Florida crash, Singh worked as a driver for California-based White Hawk Carriers. On Aug. 14, federal transportation officials launched a compliance investigation on the motor carrier’s premises.
During the investigation, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration administered an English Language Proficiency (ELP) test to Singh.
He failed the test, answering only two out of 12 verbal questions correctly and identifying one out of four traffic signs accurately, according to the Department of Transportation (DOT).
The DOT reported that on July 15, 2023, the state of Washington issued Singh a full-term CDL, which illegal immigrants are not eligible to obtain.
California issued him a limited-term non-resident CDL on July 23, 2024.
New Mexico State Police issued Singh a speeding ticket during a roadside inspection on July 3. At the time of that traffic stop, there is “no indication” that law enforcement administered an ELP assessment to Singh, the DOT said.
‘Endangering Lives’
Following the tragic crash, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in an Aug. 21 post on X that the government would pause all worker visa issuances for commercial truck drivers.“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihood of American truckers,” Rubio wrote.
The trend was spurred by high demand during the COVID-19 health crisis, combined with a labor shortage and a workforce that was already becoming more diverse.
“When capacity tightened during the pandemic, trucking companies were actively recruiting newcomers, including younger employees, but overall, professional drivers tend to skew older than the overall workforce,” NATSO said.
The organization reported that immigrants make up approximately 18 percent of employed truck drivers. The number of foreign-born drivers has more than doubled, rising from 315,981 in 2000 to more than 720,000 in 2021.
As a licensed commercial truck driver, Lawson hasn’t seen a fatal crash caused by an illegal U-turn in a long time.
“I’ve been truck driving for over 10 years,” Lawson told The Epoch Times. “I was taught in school, you don’t pull U-turns, you don’t do anything like that.
“And every place that I’ve gone to, one of their main things is no U-turns. You don’t ever do U-turns.”
“If you miss a turn, you can go down the road, you can find an off-ramp, or you find a way to loop around safely. You don’t pull anything like that.”
Lawson said he’s seen the problem of foreign drivers ill-equipped to navigate U.S. highways firsthand at various DOT weigh stations along the road.
Often, he will witness foreign drivers holding up their cellphones to communicate.
“I personally think if you’re going to come over here to America, you'd better be able to speak English fluently and be able to read everything. The training that these drivers are going through, they need to go through more,” Lawson said.
Shutdown Fears
Lawson said veteran truck drivers have a reputation to uphold.“We’re professional drivers. It’s what we get paid for,” he said.“ Anytime something stupid happens, it really makes us look bad.”
He also said he believes that foreign truck drivers, legal and illegal, take jobs away from U.S. citizens.
“It’s taking our money away,” he said. “It’s making our jobs harder.”
Lawson fears that fatal accidents involving illegal immigrants and unqualified foreign drivers in the future could shut the trucking industry down.
“And without trucking, how are you going to get everything?” Lawson said.
Jason is a lease semi-truck driver for Amazon Prime who asked that his last name be withheld. He told The Epoch Times that the issue is allowing foreign-born drivers to obtain licenses when they can’t read or write in English.
“Man, I’m set off almost every single day” by foreign drivers making illegal maneuvers, Jason said.
In light of the fatal accident in Florida, a trucker with 30 years of experience, who requested his name be withheld due to fear of retaliation, said he thinks “every truck driver has to speak English.”
“I think the government is going to really get us thinking about these licenses,” the semi driver told The Epoch Times.
“What happened is terrible. I call it a stupid thing.”
