Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has exposed how the state of California illegally allowed a foreign driver to operate a truck and cause a crash resulting in three fatalities and the hospitalization of two more persons. This comes after DOT formally notified California of "significant compliance failures" after an audit revealed one in four non-domiciled CDL samples were issued improperly.

California was required to pause issuance of non-domiciled CDLs, identify all unexpired non-domiciled CDLs that fail to comply with the FMCSA regulations and revoke and reissue all noncompliance non-domiciled CDLs if they comply with the new federal requirements that recently went into effect.

According to DOT, if California had complied with the Secretary's emergency rule and prevented the upgrade of this individual's driving privileges earlier this month, he would have never been able to get behind the wheel of his vehicle.

DOT gave California 30 days from September 26, 2025, when FMCSA issued its letter of preliminary determination of substantial noncompliance, to audit its CDL issuance policies and procedures and immediately void or rescind all unexpired, noncompliance non-domiciled CDLs.