WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Jim Banks (R-Ind.) sent a letter to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator Derek Barrs for an immediate investigation into potential “chameleon carrier” trucking networks operating in Indiana.
This follows the recent death of 64-year-old Terry Schultz, who was killed in a fatal collision involving a semi-truck driven by an illegal alien from India in Hendricks County. It also comes after a separate crash in Jay County earlier this month, in which an illegal alien from Kyrgyzstan killed four Indiana men in a semi-truck collision.
Read more about the letter here.
Read the full letter here or see below:
Dear Administrator Barrs:
I urge you to investigate potential chameleon carrier trucking networks operating in Indiana. Last week, Terry Schultz became the latest Hoosier to lose his life to a driver who never should have been in the country or gotten behind the wheel of a semitruck. Mr. Schultz died after being struck by a semitruck driven by an Indian national who reportedly crossed the southern border illegally and received trucking licenses from New York and Indiana.
Mr. Schultz’s death is not bad luck, and it is not just another accident. Seven Hoosiers have been killed in six months by illegal alien truck drivers. This is a national crisis.
I am especially concerned that Indiana may be a hotspot for so-called chameleon carriers. Since launching a tipline for truckers to report carriers engaging in unlawful practices last week, I have received data on trucking carriers operating in Indiana. Nearly 10,000 Indiana-based trucking companies have registered in the U.S. Department of Transportation database in the last six years. Over 2,000 carriers have been registered under the same two surnames.
One suburb of Indianapolis, Greenwood, contains 1,000 newly-registered trucking carriers. Over 300 carriers are active in the University Park neighborhood, which has a population of about 600 people in roughly 250 homes. That’s over one carrier for each house. The carrier reportedly involved in last night’s accident was incorporated from a Greenwood address that is the principal place of business for six other carriers.
Greenwood is not the only possible hotspot. Last night’s crash took place less than seven miles away from a cul-de-sac in Avon with sixteen carriers. In Fishers, there are ten registrations on the same neighborhood street.
Doubtless, trucking clusters by themselves do not constitute illegality. Some carriers may well be operating within the boundaries of the law. But chameleon carriers operate through numbers, and the sheer volume of registered companies within neighborhoods and at single addresses suggests that Indiana communities may be functioning as hotbeds for illegal carriers.
Whatever is going on with Indiana’s trucking clusters, it is killing Hoosiers. I cannot stand by and watch as more of my constituents are put in harm’s way by drivers who should never have received a license in the first place. I urge you to use every tool at FMCSA’s disposal to investigate potential chameleon carriers and put violators out of service permanently.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, and for all you are doing to make America great again.
