NORTH FLORIDA — Florida Highway Patrol troopers pulled truck drivers out of service during a recent enforcement crackdown in North Florida. Some drivers could not read basic road signs. Others could not communicate in English at all. Cameras captured the encounters during a Fox News ride-along with federal safety officials.
During one stop, a trooper asked a driver how well he spoke English. The driver responded in Spanish. When asked if he could speak any English, he said simply, “No.” In another encounter, a trooper asked a driver what a road sign meant. The driver responded, “No.” The trooper asked what drivers should do if they saw the sign. The driver again said, “No.”
Photo credit: Fox News Channel
FHP Master Trooper Craig Lents explained why English proficiency matters at highway speeds. “I try to concentrate on the signs they have to read,” Lents said. “If you are going down the road at 70 miles per hour, and you see that sign, you only see it for a split second.”
Troopers said up to half of truckers at some Florida weigh stations cannot meet English proficiency requirements.
FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs accompanied troopers during the inspections. He stressed that English proficiency is not a new requirement. “It’s been the law for a long period of time,” Barrs said. “It’s a safety issue. If there was a crash or something like that, I would want to make sure that driver would know how to respond — slow down for upcoming traffic or a crash that has happened up ahead.”
Photo credit: Fox News Channel
The Cases Behind the Crackdown
The enforcement push follows a string of deadly crashes involving drivers DHS says were in the country illegally or held CDLs they should never have received.
In Florida, Harjinder Singh — an illegal immigrant from India who allegedly entered the U.S. illegally and obtained a CDL in California — faces three counts of vehicular homicide. Authorities say he made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike through an “Official Use Only” access point in St. Lucie County, blocking all lanes and triggering a crash that killed three people. His brother, Harneet Singh, 25, also an illegal immigrant from India, was a passenger in the truck at the time.
In Oregon, another illegal immigrant from India, Rajinder Kumar, allegedly jackknifed his tractor-trailer and blocked both lanes of U.S. Highway 20. A Subaru Outback crashed into the truck, killing driver William Micah Carter and passenger Jennifer Lynn Lower. DHS says Kumar entered the U.S. illegally near Lukeville, Arizona and obtained a CDL in California. He faces charges of criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangering.
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