After fatal Madison County crash, Ramaswamy pledges tougher enforcement on commercial driver fraud
Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is calling for tougher enforcement of commercial driver’s license and immigration laws following a fatal crash in Madison County.
Ramaswamy responded this week after Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy criticized a commercial truck driver involved in Sunday’s fatal crash on Interstate 71 that killed 21-year-old Tobias “Toby” Forsythe, a goalkeeper for the University of Massachusetts Lowell men’s soccer team.
“I used to ride up I-71 across the state growing up as a kid & do it often today, so this hits close to home,” Ramaswamy wrote on X. “This young man was killed in Madison County & grew up in greater Columbus. It’s utterly unacceptable for drivers of massive semi trucks not to speak English or understand basic traffic signs on highways.”
Ramaswamy said Ohio should aggressively pursue fraud involving commercial driver’s licenses, immigration and Medicaid if elected governor.
“We need to be aggressive in pursuing the growing epidemic of fraud across multiple domains, from immigration fraud to licensure fraud to Medicaid fraud,” he wrote. “Deterrence is critical & we will prosecute accordingly next year.”
According to authorities, Forsythe was killed shortly after 1:30 a.m. Sunday when a semi-truck rear-ended his vehicle on Interstate 71 in Madison County.
The truck driver, 42-year-old Bekhzod Asrarov, has been charged with felony tampering with evidence after investigators alleged he removed a dashboard camera from the truck and concealed it following the crash.
Duffy said the driver failed an English-language proficiency test and that Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers used Google Translate to communicate with him at the scene.
“We cannot let truckers like Asrarov, who can’t read our road signs or speak to law enforcement, drive 80,000-pound rigs on America’s highways,” Duffy wrote on X. “We will never stop fighting to keep these dangerous truck drivers OFF THE ROAD so no other parents have to endure this unimaginable grief.”
U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, also criticized the circumstances surrounding the crash.
“This truck driver failed his English-language proficiency test and needed Google Translate to speak with state troopers,” Davidson said in a statement. “He should have never been operating a semi on Ohio roads.”
The crash has intensified scrutiny of federal English-language proficiency requirements for commercial truck drivers and how those standards are enforced.
Federal transportation regulations require commercial motor vehicle drivers to be able to read and speak English sufficiently to converse with the public, understand highway traffic signs and signals, respond to official inquiries and complete required reports and records.
The crash remains under investigation.
