Truckers unhappy about sharing road with those who bought licenses

There are enough underqualified truck drivers on the roads without a Department of Motor Vehicles license-selling scheme making it worse, several truckers interviewed Wednesday agreed.

“They should be put in prison. Not jail – prison,” Pat Brobst of Pismo Beach said as he refueled his tractor-trailer in the morning at the Love’s truck stop in Ripon. “They give us all a bad name.”

“They” are the truck drivers, trucking school owners and employees, and DMV workers involved in a case in which at least 100 commercial truckers paid up to $5,000 each to bribe state DMV employees for illegal licenses.

Two people who pleaded guilty Tuesday – a DMV employee and a Turlock trucking school owner – face up to five years in prison when they are sentenced Nov. 17. Emma Klem of Salinas and Kulwinder Dosanjh Singh, aka Sodhi Singh, owner of Mid California Truck School, admitted to conspiracy to commit bribery and identity fraud.

Brobst wasn’t familiar with the DMV bribery case but said the bogus licensing is an insult to drivers who follow the rules and puts all drivers at risk. “I’ve been doing this 52 years; I had to pass all the tests,” he said.

It’s bad enough that there are other unethical shortcuts taken, he said, citing accidents he’s seen in which trainees were driving while their trainers slept in compartments.

Also fueling up at Love’s were truckers Elliot Wilson of Modesto and Happy Singh of Ripon, who said driving a truck is a demanding job in which ignorance and inexperience can make a life-or-death difference.

Up to 23 traffic accidents could be related to the fraud, federal officials said, though there were no fatalities.

Learning of the bribery case, Wilson, who’s been driving since 1994, said, “I think it’s wrong, No. 1, and No. 2, it’s dangerous.”

It angered him that DMV employees and people such as Kulwinder Singh, whom prosecutors call “brokers” of the fraudulent licenses, could be “making money under the table, too. ... They shouldn’t be accepting money for something they know is illegal ... and on top of that rubber-stamping licenses.”

Wilson, who was driving for Frozen Food Express, said he is required to pass a physical every two years and a written DMV test every five years. “All in all, it’s dangerous if they don’t have the schooling for the thing,” he said of drivers being licensed without passing tests.

“I see a lot of drivers running this close all the time,” he said, holding his thumb and forefinger just inches apart. “I could get through L.A. traffic without braking because I don’t get that close.”

Behind the wheel of 70 feet of truck and trailer, drivers must be educated and trained to be safe on the roads, Happy Singh said. “They shouldn’t be driving without any knowledge. A driver must have the knowledge of the commercial truck and tractor to judge the distance from the cars and for everything. ... They need to know everything, save some people’s lives.”

Todd Wenger of Elk Grove, an employee of Dot Foods in Modesto, was eating in the Denny’s at the Flying J truck stop in Ripon with two drivers he’s training. “I started doing this 25 years ago, and there were not a lot of truck schools then. I learned from a friend,” Wenger said. He said a good truck school is worthwhile for someone considering a career in the driver’s seat.

“When I was in school, I heard about the rent-a-truck-a-day-and-pass-the-test deals,” said Richard Mann of Vacaville, one of the trainees riding with Wenger. “They might pass the license but not find a job.”

Good employers typically require the certificate awarded by accredited schools that shows a driver has undergone 160 hours of training, he said.

Good trucking firms also usually will give their drivers additional training, Wenger said, because they have their own policies on how they want things done. “They may train you anywhere from three weeks to three months,” he said, adding that he will work with Mann and Christopher Green for six weeks.

Green said he attended truck school training for four months, four hours a day, five days a week to earn his 160-hour certificate. He said he learned valuable information about handling road conditions and hazards, as well as the Smith System’s five keys to safe driving, which include things such as looking farther ahead and being more aware than other drivers.

“Just getting a license for quick money,” he said, “is a quick way to get in a wreck.”

This story was originally published August 12, 2015 at 3:58 PM with the headline "Truckers unhappy about sharing road with those who bought licenses."