Virginia, Other States Pay Price for New York’s Lax CDL Law

Late last month, a bus driver plowed into a line of stopped cars on Interstate 95 in Virginia, killing a family of four traveling to a wedding in South Carolina. Massachusetts residents Dmitri and Ecaterina Doncev and their two children, ages 13 and 7, were killed alongside fellow Bay Stater Priscilla Mafalda. Forty-four others were injured.

Driver Jing Dong, a resident of New York, was arrested and charged with three counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of reckless driving.

The obvious question followed: How did this happen?

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy believes he knows the answer. According to Duffy, Dong should never have been issued a commercial driver’s license (CDL) in the first place because he could not speak English.

Dong, a Chinese immigrant who later became a U.S. citizen, obtained a New York CDL in 2024 despite lacking basic English proficiency.

Duffy called the whole affair “unacceptable” in a post on X, adding, “If you can’t be properly trained, read our road signs, or communicate with law enforcement, you have no business driving a bus.”

Unfortunately, Dong’s case is not unique.

In August 2025, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 25-year-old Harneet Singh, an illegal alien from India, after he and his brother made an illegal U-turn on a Florida highway causing a fatal crash. Singh had obtained a California CDL despite lacking legal immigration status.

Two months later, another California CDL holder, 21-year-old illegal immigrant Jashanpreet Singh, drove a semi-truck into stopped traffic on Interstate 10, killing three more. Federal officials again said Singh should not have qualified for a CDL based on his immigration status.

Then in December 2025, illegal immigrant Yisong Huang caused a fatal multi-vehicle pileup despite federal authorities saying he lacked English proficiency and thus should not have received a New York CDL.

These repeated cases raise disturbing questions into the oversight blue states put into issuing CDLs.

Operating a commercial vehicle demands far greater skill and responsibility than driving a passenger car. Commercial drivers sit behind the wheels of behemoth vehicles that can greatly endanger human life if improperly driven. Legal immigration status and the ability to speak English should be the bare minimum when it comes to determining who has CDL privileges.

Yet states like California and New York have failed to treat that task with the gravity it deserves. And drivers on the road are beginning to take notice.

Truck drivers themselves increasingly cite communication barriers as a growing safety problem. Indeed, English-language proficiency ranked third among top concerns identified in the American Transportation Research Institute’s 21st annual survey of trucking industry issues, climbing from seventh the year before.

Those drivers recognize that the consequences of lax enforcement do not stop at blue state borders.

A Massachusetts family would be alive today and celebrating with their family if New York had done its job. Instead, their lives ended on a highway in Virginia, with the commonwealth now responsible for cleaning up the mess.

Thankfully, President Donald Trump’s administration has begun pressing states to strengthen enforcement. Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem oversaw operations resulting in more than 140 arrests tied to licensing and safety violations, while Transportation Secretary Duffy directed stronger enforcement of federal English proficiency requirements, including out-of-service orders for drivers unable to demonstrate sufficient language skills.

But federal enforcement alone is not enough.

States issuing CDLs must adopt reforms that endure beyond any single administration. Commercial licensing standards exist to protect the public, not to satisfy political priorities or ideological battles with Washington.

The question should be straightforward: When issuing licenses to operate vehicles capable of killing scores of people, what matters more: politics or public safety?

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