By Stacy Washington
Since the start of President Trump’s term, the Department of Transportation has revoked a whopping 30,000 commercial trucking licenses that were illegally issued to foreign drivers. And that might just be the tip of the iceberg — an untold number of unqualified truckers remain behind the wheel of the 40,000-pound machines barreling across American highways.
Innocent motorists have already paid a steep price: Federal officials estimate that at least 239 people have been killed in accidents involving semi-truck drivers who couldn’t speak or read English well enough to pass a basic proficiency test.
Late last month, the Trump administration shut down 110 driving schools that had trained more than 5,000 drivers later cited for failing basic English speaking requirements. One of those now-defunct schools certified a driver who later blew through a stop sign and killed a man. Another trained a driver later involved in a fatal Oklahoma crash.
And while trucking associations openly acknowledge the problem posed by rogue operators, they’re lobbying Congress to restrict one of the few tools that enables victims to hold these bad actors accountable.
Their target is the “third-party litigation funding” that allows outside investors to finance lawsuits in exchange for a portion of any damages or settlement. Third-party funding can help crash victims, or their surviving family members, afford the years-long lawsuits necessary to secure justice.
A serious accident can turn a family’s finances upside down. A victim may be unable to work while medical bills pile up. Meanwhile, trucking companies have deep-pocketed insurers with teams of lawyers who can drag cases out for years.
Third-party funding helps victims stay in the fight and get their day in court. Without it, many would be forced to take low-ball settlements out of financial desperation.
The trucking lobby is advocating for several legislative proposals that’d impose onerous new restrictions on litigation funding. The American Trucking Association says this push is necessary to combat “nuclear verdicts” — when outraged juries award tens of millions of dollars in damages to the families of victims who were killed or maimed by negligent truckers.
But in most cases, those large verdicts are entirely warranted. There’s a profound difference between an unavoidable highway accident and a crash that happened because rogue companies turned a blind eye to fraudulent documents and put borderline-illiterate illegal immigrants behind the wheels of 40,000-pound semi-trucks. The trucking industry’s own research has shown that “pre-crash negligence,” such as improper hiring practices, can increase jury awards by almost 300%.
Massive jury awards send an unambiguous message to trucking companies and their insurers: clean up your act or pay for it.
The trucking industry has outwardly welcomed the administration’s crackdown on bad actors. Yet it’s simultaneously asking Congress to make it harder for victims’ families to hold those bad actors accountable.
That’s deeply hypocritical. If companies are cutting corners and putting Americans at risk, Congress shouldn’t make it harder for victims to take those negligent firms to court.
Stacy Washington is a decorated Air Force veteran, an Emmy-nominated TV personality, and an author. Her radio show, Stacy on the Right, airs on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 nightly from 9 pm to midnight Eastern Time. A version of this piece originally ran in The Daily Caller.–