Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy raised concern about “foreign truck drivers not being able to understand the rules” in response to a viral video showing a truck going the wrong direction on a freeway.
Duffy shared a video on social platform X over the weekend showing an English-speaking truck driver confronting another trucker going the wrong direction. In the video, the other driver can be heard expressing confusion before apologizing.
“My team has reached out to the trucker who recorded this chilling video. He did the right thing reporting the trucker driving the wrong way to police. This easily could have ended in disaster,” Duffy posted.
“Foreign truck drivers not being able to understand the rules of our roads is a crisis that is putting lives in danger,” the secretary continued. “@USDOT is doing the work to fix it and SAVE LIVES!”
The video, captured on a dash camera, shows the second trucker going the wrong direction near a toll plaza while his hazard lights flash.
“You have got to be f‑‑‑ing kidding me. I mean, what the f‑‑‑ are — who? What?” the man who recorded the incident is heard saying aloud to himself as he pulled over near the other truck, which approached slowly going the opposite direction.
“What are you doing?” the first trucker asked the other driver, who responded in broken English.
The other trucker signaled he was planning to make a U-turn to drive on the other side.
“Let me ask you a question, man. You are going the wrong way down the freeway. You are committing a felony right now,” the first trucker said.
“OK. What [am I] doing, sir?” the other trucker asked.
“Well, one, why the f‑‑‑ are you going the wrong way down the freeway?”
The other driver gave an unintelligible response, before apologizing and appearing to elaborate on why he was going the wrong direction. He then indicated he planned to turn around.
“Un f‑‑‑ing real,” the first driver says aloud to himself while pulling away.
NewsNation, The Hill’s sister channel, reported that the incident occurred along the Indiana-Ohio border.
The Hill has reached out to the DOT for further comment.
The Trump administration has sought to crack down on drivers who don’t speak English. President Trump signed an executive order in April requiring commercial truck drivers in the U.S. to be proficient in English.
The DOT announced last week it would also withhold more than $40 million in federal highway safety funds from California over the state failing to comply with English proficiency guidelines.