{"id":502639,"date":"2026-10-20T21:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T21:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/502639\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T21:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T21:50:14","slug":"they-killed-people-with-their-big-rigs-california-let-them-keep-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/502639\/","title":{"rendered":"They Killed People With Their Big Rigs. California Let Them Keep Driving"},"content":{"rendered":"

Loren Chow looked in the rearview mirror and had a terrifying realization.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to get hit.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing I can do to get out of this.<\/p>\n

Traffic outside Fresno<\/a> had slowed. A semitruck loaded with fertilizer from Missouri, cruising at 65 miles per hour, hadn\u2019t. By the time the driver, Baljit Singh, hit the brakes, it was too late. A fully loaded big rig traveling at that speed takes the length of nearly two football fields to stop.<\/p>\n

Chow, his wife and their 17-year-old son were headed home from a college visit in June 2022. Singh\u2019s red Freightliner smashed into the back of their SUV and flipped it. Jenny Chow died. Law enforcement said Singh caused the crash by driving too fast.<\/p>\n

Loren Chow can\u2019t talk about the details of the collision because of an active lawsuit against Singh, the trucking companies and vehicle manufacturers. But court filings, police reports and driving records lead to a simple conclusion:<\/p>\n

\"\"Loren Chow holds a photo of his wife, Jenny, at the home they shared in Los Altos on Aug. 19, 2026. Skeeter, the family\u2019s dog who they adopted shortly after Jenny\u2019s death, snuggles next to him.\u00a0(Anna Hoch-Kenney\/CalMatters)<\/p>\n

If the California Department of Motor Vehicles had done its job, Jenny Chow would still be alive.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because in July 2021 \u2014 11 months before he killed Chow \u2014 Singh let his semitruck drift over the median on Merle Haggard Drive in Kern County on his way to an Amazon distribution center, killing a 26-year-old man on a motorcycle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The collision report from that crash shows police found pages from a log book, meant to keep track of Singh\u2019s hours behind the wheel, \u201cripped into small pieces\u201d in an overhead compartment.<\/p>\n

Investigators with the California Highway Patrol alleged that Singh was fatigued at the time of the crash after driving more than the 12-hour limit and recommended he be charged with vehicular manslaughter.<\/p>\n

But while the DMV knew about the earlier fatal crash and had the authority to suspend Singh\u2019s driving privileges, it let him continue to drive a big rig until he killed again.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe death was completely avoidable. That accident never should have happened,\u201d Chow said, barely choking back grief during an interview in his Bay Area living room, which is blanketed in smiling photos of Jenny and their two boys.<\/p>\n

\"\"An altar dedicated to Jenny Chow, a wife and mother who died after the family\u2019s car was hit by a truck, sits on a mantel in the Chow family\u2019s Los Altos home on Aug. 19, 2026. <\/p>\n

\"\"Jenny Chow\u2019s car after the collision with Baljit Singh\u2019s semi-truck. Screenshot via KGET<\/p>\n

\u201cI would have had my partner still. We\u2019d be a family of four. Jenny would have seen Dylan and Tyler graduate from high school,\u201d Chow said. \u201cShe would have seen so much if only the DMV had done what any person in his right mind would have done, which is to suspend the license.\u201d<\/p>\n

A CalMatters investigation found that the DMV often lets professional drivers with a history of dangerous behavior behind the wheel stay on the road and command massive vehicles \u2014\u00a0 buses filled with passengers, semis packed with goods, and tankers loaded with hazardous chemicals \u2014 even after a fatal crash.<\/p>\n

Under California law, a truck driver convicted of manslaughter is disqualified from driving big rigs for 12 months. And any driver convicted of felony vehicular manslaughter is generally supposed to receive a three-year license revocation.<\/p>\n

But criminal cases can drag out, sometimes for years.<\/p>\n

Singh wasn\u2019t convicted of manslaughter in Kern and Fresno counties until 2024. It was only then that the DMV took his license.<\/p>\n

Singh and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

State law empowers the agency to investigate drivers involved in fatal and serious-injury collisions and suspend their licenses \u2014 with or without a conviction. But the DMV routinely does nothing.<\/p>\n

Even when the agency does act, records show it can take years to do so.<\/p>\n

We examined court filings and DMV records for more than 130 commercial licensees charged with vehicular manslaughter from 2019 to early 2024 following a fatal crash on the job or off-duty in a personal vehicle.<\/p>\n

Nearly half had a valid Class A or Class B license as of late May, authorizing them to drive the biggest vehicles on the road.<\/p>\n

That includes a dozen drivers who got a ticket for unsafe driving in a commercial vehicle after having already killed someone.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, vehicular manslaughter is supposed to be a three-point violation for a truck driver, but in almost every DMV record we reviewed, it was listed as two, the penalty for a regular driver.<\/p>\n

\"\"The DMV notice Loren Chow received warning of delinquent registration fees on the vehicle involved in the fatal crash.
\u00a0(Graphic composite by Miguel Gutierrez Jr.\/CalMatters)<\/p>\n

The agency in a written statement said it relies on the courts to notify it when a conviction involves a commercial vehicle so it can assess the appropriate number of points.<\/p>\n

Despite such examples of bureaucratic indifference, we did find one area of enforcement in which the DMV is aggressive: making sure people pay fines.<\/p>\n

In 2023, months before the agency finally suspended Singh\u2019s license, it started sending Loren Chow letters threatening to garnish his wages, seize his property and put a lien on his home.<\/p>\n

The DMV said he was late paying his vehicle registration fee on the SUV that was totaled, by the truck driver it allowed to stay on the road.<\/p>\n

\n\u2018You\u2019re gonna kill somebody\u2019\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

The DMV\u2019s inaction against commercial drivers is all the more consequential because of the clear risks they pose.<\/p>\n

Truck driving is a grueling job involving long hours over vast distances. A fully loaded semi can total 80,000 pounds \u2014 20 times the weight of a car. A speeding semitruck doesn\u2019t do fender-benders; it obliterates.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing goes wrong, you\u2019re gonna kill somebody,\u201d said Joe Rajkovacz, a longtime owner-operator and advocate with the Western States Trucking Association.\u00a0<\/p>\n

About 4,000 people died in large-truck crashes in California from 2015 through 2024, the most recent decade for which federal data<\/a> is available.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Trucks drive along Interstate 5 near Firebaugh on Aug. 26, 2026.\u00a0(Larry Valenzuela for CalMatters)<\/p>\n

California\u2019s licensing decisions have an impact beyond the state\u2019s borders. Supersized trucks, long the backbone of our economy, haul billions of dollars of food from the state\u2019s farms and online orders from teeming ports to destinations across the country.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tami Friedrich, president of the Truck Safety Coalition, a national advocacy group, said that\u2019s why regulators need to do more to flag truck drivers who shouldn\u2019t be on the road. She got involved in road safety issues after her sister and brother-in-law and their two children \u2014 Kris, Alan, Anthony and Brandie \u2014 died in a crash with a big rig just after Christmas in 1989.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a certain level of responsibility above and beyond a regular car driver that they should adhere to,\u201d Friedrich said.<\/p>\n

The cases we examined suggest California is not holding them to that level.<\/p>\n

\"\"Department of Motor Vehicles parking lot in central Fresno on Dec. 13, 2022. \u00a0(Larry Valenzuela for CalMatters)<\/p>\n

The DMV\u2019s hands-off approach comes at a time of turmoil for the trucking industry. Experts say a proliferation of fly-by-night operators<\/a> and training schools has undercut safety standards and fueled a race to the bottom for driving conditions. At the same time, the Trump administration has <\/a>alleged California is improperly giving commercial licenses to people who don\u2019t meet immigration or language standards. The court files and DMV records we reviewed do not include drivers\u2019 immigration status.<\/p>\n

We sent the DMV a list of commercial drivers along with questions for this story. The agency declined an interview request and wouldn\u2019t comment on specific cases but, shortly after, took action against a dozen of the drivers, such as suspending licenses or stripping commercial driving privileges.<\/p>\n

In an email, DMV spokesperson Jonathan Groveman wrote that the agency recently updated how it handles fatal crashes and manslaughter convictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring this modernization process, the DMV identified some cases that had not been previously reviewed and have now been processed or are currently being processed,\u201d according to Groveman\u2019s email.<\/p>\n

He also wrote that law enforcement and the courts need to report information to the agency<\/a> in a timely manner in order for the DMV to act.<\/p>\n

\n\u2018What the hell?\u2019\n<\/p>\n

Jon Israel knew what kind of damage a fully loaded big rig could do. He used to drive one. And as a tow truck operator in California\u2019s vast Inland Empire, he\u2019d spent years towing away mangled wreckage from crashes on one of the state\u2019s busiest trucking corridors.<\/p>\n

So Israel would have been cautious one summer morning in 2018, when he pulled his overheating tow truck to the side of Interstate 10 and got out to check the radiator fluid, traffic whipping by.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s not much you can do when a semi veers your way.<\/p>\n

A police report shows that Marco Rodriguez let his tractor-trailer drift onto the shoulder. The massive side mirror struck Israel. He died on the roadway he\u2019d long patrolled.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Jon Israel with one of the tow trucks he used to patrol California\u2019s vast Inland Empire. \u00a0(Courtesy of Maxine Israel)<\/p>\n

Rodriguez\u2019s DMV record shows he kept driving commercial vehicles even after the fatal crash, for which he was ultimately convicted of manslaughter. Police caught him speeding in commercial vehicles three separate times from 2022 through last year, and ticketed him one more time for a lane violation.<\/p>\n

Despite that record \u2014 a vehicular manslaughter conviction, plus four tickets for unsafe driving in commercial vehicles \u2014 the agency renewed Rodriguez\u2019s trucker license in March, declining to use its discretion to keep him off the road.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the hell?\u201d said Maxine Israel, Jon\u2019s widow. \u201cAre they waiting for him to kill somebody else?\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodriguez\u2019s criminal defense attorney, Mukund Arun, called the fatal crash \u201ca very unfortunate, tragic incident\u201d and emphasized that his client was only charged with a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors can charge vehicular manslaughter as a felony or a misdemeanor, with the more serious charge typically involving extreme behavior like drunk driving or excessive speeding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maxine Israel comes from a trucking family. She missed her high school graduation to go on a run in her dad\u2019s semi. For years, she and Jon lived near a notoriously strict Riverside County checkpoint where the CHP weighed trucks and drivers could buy T-shirts that said, \u201cI survived the Banning Scales.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\" Trucks and cars drive along Interstate 580 through Altamont Pass on Aug. 18, 2026. \u00a0(Anna Hoch-Kenney\/CalMatters)<\/p>\n

But over time, she and her husband noticed that truck drivers seemed to get younger and younger. They drove fast, and their eyes often drifted from the road ahead. The big thing she and Jon talked about was how, unlike in some other states, truck drivers here often failed to slow down and switch lanes to pass people on the shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia used to be really, really strict on the big trucks,\u201d Israel said. But now, it\u2019s \u201clike they don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been more than six years since Rodriguez was convicted of killing Jon Israel. In July, after CalMatters asked the DMV about the case, the agency finally disqualified Rodriguez from driving commercially.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DMV records show it\u2019s a one-year ban; he should be eligible to go back to driving trucks next summer.<\/p>\n

Court research by Robert Lewis, Lauren Hepler, Anat Rubin, Sergio Olmos, Cayla Mihalovich, Ese Olumhense, Ko Bragg, Andrew Donohue and Jenna Peterson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thank you to our partner KGET for contributing to this piece after producing its own video<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loren Chow looked in the rearview mirror and had a terrifying realization. We\u2019re going to get hit. There\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-502639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}