A trucking industry insider is warning about a deadly danger rampant on U.S. highways: unqualified, under-trained commercial truckers, many of whom are and cannot read basic road signage.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Mike Kucharski, co-owner and vice president of Illinois-based JKC Trucking, issued an impassioned appeal for more investigations into the problem, saying, “This is just madness.”
“You wouldn’t put someone in a cockpit of a Boeing 737 flying from New York to California if they weren’t properly trained or couldn’t communicate clearly or speak English. The same standard should apply to our highways,” said Kucharski.
“Every day, truck drivers are driving alongside school buses, families and commuters just trying to get to work and back home safely,” he continued. “When unqualified drivers slip through the cracks, that creates risk for our motoring public, and you can see that there’s accidents all the time.”
This week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into several commercial driving schools in the state for allegedly “endangering Texans by providing inadequate commercial driver training, including to non-English speakers.”
A statement by Paxtons office said these practices violate federal law requiring basic English comprehension and Texas law mandating adequate training to operate a commercial vehicle.
Paxtons investigation comes just months after U.S. Transportation Secretary announced his department had issued more than 550 notices of removal â decertification â to “sham CDL training schools” across the country. A statement by the DOT said the schools were found in violation of federal safety standards.
Speaking from inside the industry, Kucharski said that Duffy and Paxton are exactly right to crack down on the rampant CDL school abuse. He pointed to the ongoing spate of fatalities allegedly caused by individuals holding improperly issued CDLs.
In one recent case, Ohio officials revealed last week that , a semi-truck driver charged in a fiery interstate crash that killed a young family of three, fraudulently obtained an Ohio drivers license, a commercial drivers license and later U.S. citizenship under an alternate identity.
Several months ago, in February, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Indiana arrested Bekzhan Beishekeev, an illegal alien semi-truck driver issued a commercial drivers license by Pennsylvania. The Department of Homeland Security said that Beishekeev allegedly killed four people on Feb. 3, when he swerved into oncoming traffic and struck a van in a head-on collision.
In Oregon, ICE also recently arrested Indian illegal immigrant , who is accused of jackknifing his semi-truck and trailer, blocking both lanes of traffic, causing a crash that killed a newlywed couple.
There have been several other high-profile traffic fatalities involving illegal immigrants and improperly issued CDLs that have rocked the nation in recent months.
“This is just madness what’s happening,” he said, adding, “It has to stop because the longer this continues, there’s going to be more accidents, more people that are going to perish.”
Besides the danger posed to U.S. citizens on the roads, Kucharski said the abuse has been crushing the commercial trucking industry, and by extension, causing disruptions to the U.S. supply chain and impacting prices.
“This is an economic issue, not just a safety issue,” he emphasized. “When unqualified drivers get on the road, it doesn’t just increase risk, it drives up the insurance costs, which has already risen for all of us; our insurance keeps going up, lawsuits, ultimately prices for the consumers.”
Kucharski has previously immigrants carrying sanctuary state licenses, sending a “shockwave” through the industry by edging out qualified, legitimate American drivers who require higher salaries.
He explained that illegal immigrant truck drivers
