APRIL 15, 2025 |
Photo – Representative from Wyoming Harriet Hageman – Bigfoot99 file photo
Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman is urging the federal Department of Transportation to require commercial truck drivers to read and speak English.
Since 2020, over 6,600 commercially licensed vehicles have been involved in motor vehicle collisions in Wyoming, with 372 of those incidents involving at least one fatality. According to the Wyoming Department of Transportation, commercial motor vehicles were involved in just over 15% of critical crashes last year.
Here in Carbon County, commercial vehicle drivers have been involved in several fatal crashes, most notably in December of 2022, when commercial truck driver Saviol Saint Jean smashed into a parked Memorial Hospital of Carbon County ambulance, killing EMT Tyeler Harris and seriously injuring his partner, Tiffany Gruetzmacher.
Just last month, another semi-truck driver, Borys Bakhtiarov, lost control of his vehicle on I-80 and crashed head on into another commercial truck traveling the opposite direction. The driver of the other truck was seriously injured and his co-driver died as a result of injuries sustained in the crash.
Bakhtiarov reportedly does not speak English.
Wyoming Congresswoman Harriet Hageman blames the increased number of commercial truck crashes on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA. In 2016, under the guidance of the Barak Obama Administration, the FMCSA reduced enforcement of a long-standing requirement for commercial motor vehicle drivers to demonstrate minimum English proficiency.
Before 2016, commercial vehicle drivers were required to, “speak and read the English language sufficiently enough to converse with the general public, to understand highway traffic signs and signals in the English language, to respond to official inquiries, and to make entries on reports and records.”
Now, commercial vehicle drivers may use a variety of methods to communicate with officials during roadside inspections, including interpreters, cue cards, and smart phone applications.
On April 10th, Congresswoman Harriet Hageman wrote a letter urging the federal Department of Transportation to review the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s lax enforcement of minimum English proficiency standards.
In her letter to the Department of Transportation, Hageman wrote that drivers who lack a minimum understanding of English place millions of American motorists in danger.
The Congresswoman linked the rise in fatal truck crashes across the nation to commercial drivers’ lack of English proficiency. Representative Hageman wrote that in 2022, the Cowboy State had the second-highest number of fatal crashes involving large trucks in the country, at 21%, second only to South Dakota, which saw commercial trucks involved in 23% of fatal crashes the same year.
Additionally, the National Highway Traffic Administration concluded that in 2022, Wyoming saw the highest number of fatal collisions involving commercial trucks per capita, with 5.1 crashes per 100,000 residents.
In her letter to the federal Department of Transportation, Congresswoman Hageman wrote that commercial drivers must possess the ability to read and communicate in English to safely navigate Wyoming’s unpredictable and often hazardous road conditions.
