A bus crash in Virginia killed five people and injured 34 others, Virginia State Police confirmed — and federal officials are now raising questions about how the driver got behind the wheel in the first place.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the driver was non-English speaking and had obtained a commercial license in New York before the crash. Duffy’s comments drew immediate attention to interstate licensing standards and whether language proficiency requirements are being enforced consistently across state lines.
At least one survivor described the moments before impact. “The bus was going really, really fast,” the survivor told The Washington Post.
Fast. That single word is doing a lot of work right now, as investigators piece together what caused the wreck.
Virginia State Police haven’t yet released the names of the five people killed or detailed where along the state’s roads the crash occurred. The 34 injured were taken to area hospitals; their conditions have not been specified publicly.
Duffy’s focus on the driver’s New York license raises a question that neither his office nor New York licensing authorities had answered as of Friday, May 30: what testing standards the driver met, whether an interpreter was used during any portion of the licensing process, and whether federal motor carrier regulations require English proficiency for commercial drivers operating interstate routes.
Federal motor carrier rules do include an English-language requirement for commercial drivers — operators are supposed to be able to read road signs and communicate with enforcement officers — but how strictly that standard is applied during state-level CDL testing has long been inconsistent, according to prior federal audits.
The National Transportation Safety Board hadn’t announced as of Friday whether it would open a formal investigation into the crash.
Reporting by WRAL, the New York Post, and The Washington Post. Read the original report.
