(The Center Square) – Ten failures of a written exam for a commercial driver’s license have been uncovered against the suspect in a triple fatality on the Florida turnpike involving an 18-wheeler.
Harjinder Singh, says Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, also failed a behind-the-wheel training course at a private CDL school in the state of Washington. The state’s top prosecutor, already with litigation against the states of California and Washington, said that school “will be hearing from my office soon.”
The Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles said Singh, on Aug. 12 driving an 18-wheeler, tried to U-turn on the Florida Turnpike through a point in the divided highway marked “official use only.” The speed limit at mile marker 171 is 70 mph.
Homeland Security’s link to video from Breaking911, shot from inside the truck, shows the graphic collision that followed.
A Chrysler Town & Country minivan slams into the trailer that suddenly blocked its lanes. All three inside the minivan were killed – a 30-year-old man from Florida City driving, and a 37-year-old woman from Pompano Beach and a 54-year-old man from Miami.
Singh was not injured. He is jailed and facing three counts of vehicular homicide.
Homeland Security says Singh does not have a legal right to be in the United States and obtained a commercial driver’s license in California. The Florida Highway Patrol said he crossed the Mexico border into California in 2018.
Uthmeier has asked for revocation of commercial driver’s license program authority and associated federal funding in California and Washington. He said the states’ choices on rules set by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are the reason.
Tuesday on the 10 Freeway in Ontario, Calif., 21-year-old Jashanpreet Singh of India was driving an 18-wheeler that never braked before instigating a rear-end collision with eight vehicles, said the California Highway Patrol. In addition to three dead, four others were hospitalized.
Thursday, Homeland Security filed an arrest detainer for Jashanpreet Singh, saying he entered the country through the southern border in 2022 and was released into the United States by the Biden administration.
Neither man named Singh is related, according to published reports.
