Fox News cameras did a ride-along with federal safety officials in North Florida, where they captured a series of encounters with truck drivers who couldn’t read road signs or communicate sufficiently in English. Over the last year or so, there have been numerous fatal accidents involving trucks driven by illegal aliens who are either under the influence of alcohol or failed to read road signs, leading to a new push by safety officials to get illegal aliens off the road.
Footage revealed investigators taking a number of truckers out of service for various safety violations. Some of the drivers they pulled over were unable to recognize or understand basic road signs or to speak English. One particular encounter showed a Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) trooper asking a trucker how well he spoke English. He responded in Spanish.
When the trooper asked the trucker if he could speak English, he said, “No.” Troopers revealed that up to half of truckers at some Florida weigh stations cannot meet English proficiency requirements, a scary figure for those who share the road with these drivers. “I try to concentrate on the signs they have to read,” FHP Master Trooper Craig Lents said.
According to Fox News, Lents added, “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.” Another clip showed a trooper asking a trucker what a specific road sign meant. The trucker simply replied, “No.” He then asked the trucker what drivers need to do if they saw the sign. Again, the trucker just said, “No.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has made dealing with illegal alien truck drivers a priority with Department of Transportation officials increasing enforcement of federal English requirements that have existed for years. “It’s been the law for a long period of time,” Derek Barrs, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator, went on to say.
“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,” he added. Authorities went on to say that not being able to sufficiently speak or read English poses a great risk to the safety of others on the road, especially since they drive at high speeds while transporting tons of goods.
The report then spoke about the numerous deadly crashes that have motivated the recent enforcement push, including a case from Florida involving Harjinder Singh, an illegal immigrant from India who was charged in a tractor-trailer crash that killed three individuals. Singh made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike through an “Official Use Only” access point located in St. Lucie County.
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His truck blocked all three lanes of the highway, which led to the fatal crash. Singh’s brother, Harneet, also an illegal immigrant, was riding in the passenger seat at the time. Singh, who entered the country illegally, obtained his commercial driver’s license (CDL) in California. He is now facing three counts of vehicular homicide, according to law enforcement officials.
Featured Image: screenshot from embedded video