11-3-25 - 8am - Legal vs Illegal CDL Drivers

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. Michael Insights showed Draggon, congratulations on your big
promotion to be on the same station as the Rockies. Frankly,
I don't care. I listen on the podcast and the
best part about all this is that I'll have to
listen to five out five fewer hours each week. Thanks,
have a great day. Why did they pick that promo

(00:27):
to push our change starting Monday? Where I say, because
we really love you guys, because I guess they're not
in on the joke. We don't love the audience at all.
But you said it so like that dip what you know,
Just keep you know, I don't care if you really
listen to podcast or not. Just keep downloading it. In fact,

(00:50):
I would to encourage you to download it as many
times as you can. Download it. Five times a day,
I don't care ten times a day.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
You've got the phone, you've got the laptop, and you've
got the computer. Go ahead and each each.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Of the exactly, and then once you get it downloaded,
just to leave it, you know, just come on. It's
pretty simple. But I do have to give it, you know,
I do have to give it a little bit of credit. Though.
Now we're on the same station as the Rockies, and.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
They'll even be of a handful you know, three, four
or five times where we will be preempted by the Rockies.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Yeah. Unfortunately that time slot is not quite as bad
as the other time slot. Correct. Oh Man, When I
was doing evenings on KOA, it was like, am I
am I working this week? Exactly with all these news
stories recently about illegal aliens being involved in fatal or
other traffic accidents since they're driving with a driver's license,

(01:53):
although not a citizen of any particular state, that maybe
not even a citizen of the state that issued the
driver's license to them. In fact, even more broadly, I think,
more appropriately, not even a citizen of any state of
this country. I started searching for the number of accidents
fatal or otherwise involving drivers that are illegal aliens, either

(02:16):
with no driver's license or an illegal alien that has
a Colorado issue driver's license. In twenty nineteen, the Colorado
polit Bureau, that's the first year that they authorize the
issue ince of state driver's licenses to individuals who are
in the country illegally. They're not illegal immigrants. They are

(02:37):
according to federal code, they are illegal aliens. They are
aliens without authorization in the country. But then I started
trying to do a deep search of publicly available records,
trying to find, you know, from the state of Colorado,
what are the records in terms of accidents fatal or
otherwise that involve a driver either the I don't care

(03:01):
whether they're cause or they're just you know, a victim
of the accident, but a driver involved in an accident
fatal or otherwise, who is driving with a Colorado issued
driver's license or any other state issued driver's license, who
is an illegal alien? The Colorado Department of Revenue, that's

(03:24):
who issues driver's licenses, they have not routinely published detailed stats,
especially on licenses issued to illegal aliens, making exact counts challenging,
if not impossible, to determine the numbers even and estimates
are impossible to find. So then I go on and

(03:47):
I start using different AI platforms see what they can
come up with. And I dig, and I dig, and
I dig and virtually everyone. I use about three or
four different ones when I'm not using Lexus and Nexus.
In fact, lots of times I will use Lexus Nexus
to get you know what, because Lexus Nexus is not
an artificial intelligence platform. Lexus Nexus is a search platform,

(04:12):
and you use Boullion searches. You search for that. They
had natural language searches also, but you search for, for example,
I want to know the number of accidents automobile or
truck accidents in Colorado where one or other drive either

(04:33):
driver is an illegal alien with or without a driver's
license from the state of Colorado or any other state,
whorl whirl whorld, the blue circle of death, or the
in the case of Mac the Rainbow Circle of death.
And you wait, you wait, and you wait, and nothing returns.

(04:56):
So I go on to a difference to I think.
I went onto three different AI platform and I essentially
got the same response, which in essence was this, if
you want specific data, you'll need to do a Freedom
of Information Act request to the Colorado State Patrol and
to the Colorado Department of Revenue. In other words, we're

(05:20):
not going to publicly show that information. Why why not
tell us that? Because you know, let's think about a
Colorado State Patrol, Denver Police Department, or I don't care,
pick Steve rings Well County Sheriff's office. When there's an accident,

(05:43):
particularly a fatal accident, they spend hours investigating that accident.
First thing to do, you know, they'll check out well first,
I mean obviously they take care of the victims, but
then they start digging into the driving record. Who are
these individuals? You know, they obviously want to do you know,

(06:04):
we're drugs or alcohol involved? You know, what's on their
driving record? And at some point they're going to have
an indication that one person that maybe, let's just say
is the cause of the accident has a one of
those no name driver's licenses from either New York or California,
which automatically indicates that they're in the country illegally. Or

(06:28):
you might dig into a Colorado driver's license and find
out that, oh, it's issued under whatever the Senate bill
was from twenty nineteen in which we just give according
to state law, undocumented immigrants driver's licenses. Well, you can't
find the date. But the Assistant Attorney General for the

(06:51):
United States, her Meat Dylan, has taken a really hard
position I think deserves a fair hearing because these recent
fatal truck crashes that, according to her, point to a
problem with illegal immigrant illegal alien drivers, and not particularly
I didn't realize until I started digging into this that
many people conflate Seeks s I k H sek. It's

(07:14):
a religion. They wear the turbans, they got the little
not banned app but the little sword. You know, they
carry a little sword on them. Seeks, it's a religion. Well,
apparently Sikhs who are here legally have become part of
the backbone of American freight. Now many of you might

(07:36):
expect a cultural war brief, You're not going to get one.
The claim here is empirical and it's institutional, and that
is this who is being licensed by what process and
are under what incentives. Now, once you ask those questions
in that order, you start to find a pattern. The

(07:58):
pattern is not about ethnicity, it is not about religion.
It is about legality and the structures that align behavior
with safety. Now, if you're a Seek driver, a lawful
Seak driver, now most I would say, I think I

(08:18):
can say most of them are owner operators. They fit
the safe structure. But an illegal alien who obtains a
CDL a commercial driver's license through fraud and then finds
work with a rule breaking firm that fits over here
in the unsafe structure. So that distinction between the safe

(08:41):
structure and the unsafe structure explains the recent tragedies and
the broader stats that I can find since twenty twenty.
Just begin with a very basic point that I think
often gets lost in all the outrage over this. There
is no there is zero credit evidence that I can
find that legally present foreign born truck drivers as a

(09:05):
class have higher crash rates or higher rates of fraud
than US born drivers. I want to make sure you
understand that I can't find credible evidence that someone who here,
who is here legally present, but are forum born and
drive eighteen wheelers, are any truck CDL. Let's say that

(09:26):
no credible evidence that illegally present form born CDL driver
as a class has a higher crash rate or higher
rates of fraud than US born drivers. Now, the industry
itself has said as much, very plainly, the American Trucking Association.
They've called the story of unsaved foreign drivers flooding the

(09:48):
fighway the highways false and unsustainable when you start to
scrutinize it. Academic work you can find online of immigrant
driving risk, well, it's not really truck specific. Nonetheless, it
kind of points in the same direction. Recent immigrants. I'm

(10:10):
using the word immigrant here because I'm including both foreign
born people who are in the state. Say they're here
with a green cark. They're not citizens, but they are
lawfully present in the United States, and illegal aliens who
are unlawfully present in the United States. So you put
all these together, you start to see things pointing in

(10:32):
one direction. Recent immigrants, across all vehicles have been measured
to have markedly lower serious crash risk than long term residents.
I was kind of surprised by that, except when you
look at hmm, a legal immigrant, a legal immigrant driver,

(10:54):
they clear the same federal and state checks as US citizens.
In many cases, they face actually closer review, particularly in
these times when everybody's really should be anyway concerned about
hiring someone is not who's not in the country legally
and does not meet the requirements for a CDL. So

(11:15):
when many of those drivers, the legal immigrants, are also
owner operators, then the safety effect actually becomes stronger. Why
because they finance, they maintain, and they ensure the truck
that bears their name, so they are incentivized to make

(11:37):
certain that they are lawful. They have the insurance, they
have the training, they have the skills because they're carrying
all of the liability. I guess you could just sum
it up this way, owner operat US. Owner operator status
matters and does make a difference. It matters because the

(12:00):
incentives matter. The owner operator's capital and his or her
CDL license sit on the line with every single mile
that they drive. So that creates what that creates the
safety effect, that creates a cautious driving profile. You know,
as I'm talking about this dragon, all I can think

(12:20):
about is our truck driving friend who talks about screaming
through the parks and tearing up the yard and everything
else going through the church drive to the church. I'm
not sure where. I think we have to have a
separate safe unsafe category then over here for him backcrap
crazy category. Okay, we'll do that. So I got to

(12:44):
reformulate my notes here. So when I talk about the safety,
when I talk about the safety effect and the non
safety effect, he doesn't fit in either one of those.
He's over here in the back crack crazy part. I don't.
I just held out of that. So let's go to
Iowa State. Iowa State University. Researchers there found that a

(13:06):
higher share of company drivers correlates with the worst safety performance,
while heavier reliance on owner operates correlates with better performance.
I now that's really kind of a TLDR top line.
Don't read of that study. The experienced owner operators, who

(13:31):
usually have decades of experience on the road, really do
take an extraordinary effort to protect their equipment and their record.
Why because their livelihoods depend upon it. Well, you may say,
but Michael, the guy that's working for a company, or
you know, drives for Swift or drives for Cisco, or
drives for somebody else. You know, they're their equipment and

(13:56):
their records on the line. Also, Well, not really, because
they don't pay for the insurance on their truck. The
company does. Cisco or Swift or somebody else pays for that. Well,
the people that drive for one of the petroleum carriers,
they carry that insurance. Now their records on the line.
But it's not the same as being the owner operator.
It's kind of like public housing. If you own or

(14:19):
rent your home or your apartment of condo, you're certainly
going to take better care of it, maintain it, and
keep it out as opposed to somebody that never writes
a check never does anything. You just show up and
they give you a key. You don't give a rights
ass about it. It's kind of like me in a
rental car. You know, I want to protect my driver's
license with respect when I rent a car, but oops,

(14:41):
if I hit the car, yeah it's a rental I
don't care, although I should, because obviously that would reflect
on my insurance. Experienced owner operators decades on the road,
protect their equipment and their record even when you even
when controlling for the route type and the freight, the

(15:04):
incentives for them cut towards safety. Now, I'm not denying
that company drivers drive safely. I'm not saying that at all.
It says in this study it says only that the
employment model has a measurable effect. So the Sikh community
which is getting conflated unfortunately, and I think wrongly. I

(15:25):
don't think wrongly, I know wrongly. With a high share
of owner operators, will all else equal tend towards safer outcomes. Now,
for just a moment, let's consider the Punjabi Sikh trucking community,
which for over forty years now has formed a really
dense network, and that network embodies those safety incentives. The

(15:51):
history shows us that long before they came to this country,
many Seeks in Punjab had already gravitated toward trucking because
discrimination in other professions made trucking one of the few
occupations where they could freely wear their turbans, keep their beards,
and earn a living at the same time. So then,
when the Sikh families began to arrive in this country

(16:13):
in the eighties and nineties, after ways of persecution in India,
trucking still drew them because it offered those same religious
accommodations along with an entrepreneurial path, and it gave them
a dignified living. Those who came legally built businesses, sponsored

(16:35):
relatives through lawful channels. They taught the trade to their children,
or to their cousins, or their nephews, or who their aunts, uncles,
whoever it was they came along with them they came
to this country. Over time, that network scaled. Today most

(16:57):
estimates place roughly one hundred and thirty five thousand Seek
Americans behind the wheel with the CDL. That's about four
percent of the entire national driver pool. And there's a
far higher share of Seaks on the West Coast. In

(17:19):
addition to that, Seeks are estimated to own on the
order of twenty percent of US trucking companies. Now I
find that fig You're remarkable because that signals deep investment,
not transient. And in fact, that indicates to me one
of my favorite words, assimilation, because ownership brings with it

(17:42):
what the owner operator model, and that model brings lower
crash exposure, higher maintenance discipline. The texture that we find
on the ground matches those numbers the community meant, the
Sikh community they mentor the newcomers they find out it's trucks.
They hold their peers accountable. Sponsorship is reputational as well

(18:05):
as financial, so the sponsor has a reason to vouch
only four candidates that'll pass all the tests, drug meet
the English requirements, and keep their clean logs. Good morning,
Michael and Dragon.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
The more I think about it, celebrating being.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
On the same radio station as the.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Colorado Rockies is a lot like celebrating not matching a
single number on your powerball ticket.

Speaker 1 (18:31):
See, we thought that good morning, We thought that's what
you meant. You should have kept your mouth shut, because
now you are confessing that that's not what you meant.
And we took it as a great kind of dig
at us. That's why we love you, guys, is because
you you take digs at us. You blew that way.

(18:52):
Sometimes it's better just to keep your mouth shut. Oh my,
By the way, text line is pretty hilarious today. I
just had a chance to kind of breeze through it quickly.
Before I go on, let's go back to my pipeline

(19:12):
about safe effect and non safe effects. Think about the
pipeline that I just described about seeks coming here. There
is a culture of driving trucks in Punjab because of discrimination.
This way, Seeks can wear their turbans and practice or religion.
They're entrepreneurs. They own their own trucks, their owner operators.

(19:35):
They pass it along, They encourage others, they help family members,
they hold each other accountable. I mean, it's just amazing
how they operate. But think about that pipeline. A lawful
seek sponsor helps a lawful reality. They're not going to
help someone who's come across the border illegally because that

(19:57):
imperils them or you know, either a lawfulrality or maybe
just a neighbor who wants to get a CDL and
then they might provide, say an older tractor because of
a brand new one on fair terms, and then they
integrate that driver into a smaller fleet that prizes and

(20:18):
emphasizes compliance with the rules and regulations. So this new
person they don't need to cheat to enter because a
sponsor can't afford for him to cut corners once he's
in that cohort. So that pipeline is small, it's relational,

(20:38):
and it's self policing. Think about the incentive gradients. They
all point toward safety. They go in this safety column.
When legal status is in order and the mentor's balance
sheet is exposed to the mente's behavior, the man drives

(21:01):
like an owner. That's what a virtuous cycle looks like
in practice. So we got a baseline. Now, let's contrast
that cycle with the pattern that gets revealed in the
recent fatal crashes that have sert all this public anger. Florida,

(21:22):
august an illegal entrant from India operating a tractor trailer
on a turnpike made that unlawful maneuver that led to
that multi vehicle crash and multiple deaths. Subsequent reports indicate
he came to the country illegally in twenty eighteen. He

(21:43):
improperly obtained a CDL. He failed the English proficiency requirement.
He should never have been licensed. And then in California's
a couple of weeks later, another illegal alien, also of
Indian origin, was released after a border crossing, got a

(22:04):
got a CDL and then killed three people in a
dui crash on a major corridor. Those cases do not
indict Seek Americans. What do they indict? A breakdown? Both
men had been refused sponsorship by Americas in then and

(22:25):
Seek communities they had gone to and they said, nope,
we do not You're not going to be a part
of our group. Why because no reputable Seek business or
family would sign their papers and nobody would vouch for them.
Why because they were already viewed as being irresponsible because

(22:46):
they come to the country illegally, or they had an
addiction of some sort, but they were otherwise just in
general terms, they were unfit to trust with a truck
or a loan. See how this virtuous cycle works. The
best and brightest from Pumjad. They don't risk their lives,
they don't risk their futures to sneak into the US.

(23:07):
They wait, they qualify, they enter legally. So these tragedies
that we hear about. They reveal a separate unsafe channel,
and that channel bypasses the legitimate seek pipeline and replaces
it with the unsafe and illicit one that runs through
fraudulent licening, evasive employers, and complete lack of oversight. You

(23:34):
think about how that dragon and I were kind of
talking about this during the break. If you really think
about how that illicit unsafe channel functions well, corrupt nodes
in the licensing authorities through carriers that are willing and
they don't care. They're going to gamble their department transportation

(23:56):
numbers for a marginal dollar. They they don't care. That
Florida case, for example, exposed a cash for CDL ring
inside a county DMV where insiders issued hundreds of licenses
to unqualified applicants, many I can't say most, but many

(24:20):
of whom were illegal aliens. Surveillance from that DMV shows
test evasions and now they're under indictment. New York authorities,
in a separate investigation, uncovered a multi state conspiracy. They
used forge residency and training records, and they used those

(24:42):
forged records to shepherd more than one thousand illegal aliens.
Into CDLs and why does the black market like that
exist Because there's demand for would be drivers who can't
pass the test honestly or can't meet the legal status requirements.
And that persists because there are employers who will hire

(25:02):
those drivers to run over equipment, to fake the logs,
to skip the drug squeeze screens, to squeeze out additional hours.
They are horrible employers who are as liable in my opinion,
as the drivers themselves. In fact, you should ask Dan
this afternoon if your family was involved in a truck crashchase, Dan,

(25:27):
I don't know about that right where an illeal alien
has fraudulely obtained a commercial driver's license and not an
owner operator, but operating you know, for a company, and
that company's been involved into some underhanded, you know, under
the table cash payments to get them through all the
DMV processes. Don't you think you could probably hold the

(25:48):
operator liable And you might even although sovereign immunity might
protect them, depending on how that DMV operates in a
particular state, you might be able to have to go
after those individuals that did them because they're operating outside
the scope with their duty. If they were operating within
the scope with their duty. Sovereign immunity might protect them
from liability. But they're not operating that way. They're operating illegally.

(26:12):
They're operating fraudulently, and that persists because of those companies
and the corruption inside our government. Oh wait a minute, Michael,
we should advocate our compassion to the government because they'll
be compassion.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Gee.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
I wonder how much fraud goes on in the food
stamp program. Gee, I wonder how much fraud goes on
in Colorado? Gee? I wonder? You know here, it's economies,
pure simple economies. If a firm refuses to bear the
cost of compliance, then it's naturally going to go find
drivers who cannot complain to regulators and who will accept

(26:51):
some substandard, in fact unsafe or illegal working conditions. That's
the shadow labor market that allow with the higher crash
risk and puts them in the unsafe category. So go
back to the Deputy Attorney General. Her claim is not

(27:14):
only plausible, I think it's the best explanation that you
can get when you clusted the fact. Since twenty twenty,
the safety problem is actually concentrated among drivers who never
should have been licensed and among the carriers who use
those improperly and unlawfully and improperly licensed drivers. But the

(27:35):
lawful seat network, by contrast, is actually a safety asset.
They're living in the American dream. They've come here legally,
they none of they come here legally, They establish their
own business, they end up buying their own rigs, and
then they slowly grow and expand their network. But they're

(27:58):
very careful about expanding their news network. Oh you're a Sikh,
but you came here illegally. Now we're not going have
anything to do with you. Oh you're a Sikh and
you came here legally. Let's talk to you. Let's see
what you're like. You know, let's do a really serious interview,
find out what your goals and objectives are. You know,
where do you want to be in five years? Kind
of crap, make fun of it if you will. But

(28:21):
that kind of network, I don't care if they're Sikhs, Mexicans, Guatemalans,
I don't care if they're what if they've come to
the country legally and they set up that kind of
network power to them. And that network grew through sponsorship
because it channels the entrance into owner operator roles, and

(28:43):
it deploys strong peer pressure, all trying to make sure
that they comply with the rules the laws. And that's
why the industry voices have urged the public to reject
any attempt to smear seek truckers in the wake of
these tragedies. They're actually our neighbors. They're business owners. They

(29:04):
pay taxes, they train the apprentices that they bring to
work in their companies, and then they deliver the freight
that keeps the stores stocked. They are not the cause
of the current spike in fatality headlines. Now, two clarifications matter. Next, Brownie,
I'm surprised how much you know about truck and the sikhs,

(29:25):
but you missed one important fact. They're all wearing flip flops. Well,
at least they're putting something on their feet as opposed
to your gross, dirty toenails that are like Howard Hughes
long haven't been trimmed in you know, six years, super

(29:46):
yellow and callouses on the feet. They're just cracked and
nasty and probably got oil and grease in between. The
cracks on the bottom of your feet are just gross.
And then you know, h at least they have flip
flops on now and I'll never get a straight answer.
But I really like to know is that true? I

(30:08):
don't know. But do you think I'm gonna believe a
word he tells me. No, not a word. But that
train left the station. That train left the station and
crashed on the bridge a long time ago. Two things
I want to make you understand. I don't mean that
like just two clarifications. Nothing I say denies that a

(30:34):
lawful immigrant from any country. I'm not denying that a
lawful immigrant can commit a crime, or that a US
born driver can be reckless. Of course that's true. Should
go without saying. The claim I'm giving you is statistical,
not categorical. We're talking about rates and predictors, the predictors

(30:57):
that keep resurfacing our legal status, integrity, the licensing process,
and the employment model. And then the second point I
would make is the role of illegal entrants illegal aliens
is not a moral condemnation of all who cross unlawfully.
I think they've broken the law, and I think that

(31:17):
there has moral and legal consequences. It's simply a recognition
that in commercial trucking, the law builds the safety railings,
and they're quite frankly not doing it. In many cases,
the Class A license ought to be a very reliable
signal that that driver is in the country with authorization.

(31:37):
If we allow compromise, that category of safety becomes diminished.
There's no integrity in it. We put eighty thousand pound
machines into untested hands. So what should you and I
be demanding? Well, think about the fault lines that I

(32:01):
just described. There is a licensing fraud economy that ought
to be crushed legally, criminal prosecution, jail time, withdrawal of
their ability to do business. Again, that means you might
have an internal affairs or an inspector general at DMVs.

(32:23):
We ought to be auditing random audits of the third
party testers, and there ought to be criminal referrals for
any broker that sells forged training records or residency documents.
Wait a minute, am I just describing what we should
be doing? Anyway? And quite frankly, you know, Dragon and
I were talking during the break about, well, if we
go to home Depot and hines hire somebody and they

(32:43):
show us a driver Colorado or driver's license, well, does
it meet the W nine requirements? Well, in Colorado probably not,
because I know and we know based on law that
they give driver's licenses to illegal aliens. That's the foot
in the door. Florida and New York takedowns that have

(33:05):
taken place ought to be the template, not the exception.
Then there's another thing we have to make dot drug
screening and the English requirement. Actually take it seriously, put
some bite in it. If an applicant fails English, you
don't drive a hazmaunt route through a port city. In fact,

(33:26):
I think if you failed English, you don't drive at all.
Third use data the way that safety critical sectors already do.
Match the crash reports, inspection histories, the carrier ownership trees
to identify all the chameleon carriers out there that just
turn through names to outrun out of service orders. The

(33:48):
same analytics analytics firms that monitor fraud in banking could
help the FMCSA do the same thing to see the
shell games and then elevate and replicate what works. But
what to be doing, we're not doing anything right now.
Do you think they're gonna do that in Colorado? Do

(34:10):
you think they're doing it in New York of all places?
Shocker to me. And they're doing in Florida not shocker
to me. What do you think about Colorado? I'd be
curious to hear what our truck drivers say about Colorado.
And then there's one more thing. Elevate and replicate what works.

(34:30):
Encourage owner operator pathways through small fleet apprenticeships. Recognize the
communities with reputational bonds such as the Sikhs, can onboard
new drivers with higher safety expectations at a lower public cost.
The Seeks, in so many ways offer a case study

(34:51):
and practical answers. Now, I know most of them grew
up speaking English in Punjab because that's a core part
of their schooling, that's a core part of business India.
And then to come here legally, they've got to demonstrate
English fluency as part of the immigration and licensing process.
English proficiency is both a known requirement and an internal expectation.

(35:16):
This should be for everybody. Chrich gets back to what
does this help us accomplish assimilation