CVSA awards trucker with 3.6 million safe miles who hauls radioactive waste

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) honored a truck driver with decades of experience hauling legacy nuclear waste for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

On August 18, 2026, the CVSA named truck driver Tommy Cash as this year’s International Driver Excellence Award (IDEA) recipient.

Cash achieved 3.6 million safe miles so far in his trucking career, hauling freight including fuel, milk, refrigerated goods, flatbed loads, bulk commodities, and, most recently, radioactive waste.

 “I always tell anyone who is even thinking about becoming a truck driver, ‘What other job pays you to see the country? You just can’t beat that’,” said Cash.

Cash drives for CAST Specialty Transportation Inc. He is one of only 36 professional truck drivers entrusted with transporting transuranic radioactive waste from DOE sites across the country to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility near Carlsbad, New Mexico, for permanent disposal. 

Cash has specialized in hauling transuranic waste generated by atomic energy defense activities for the past 23 years.

The CVSA highlighted the number of successful commercial vehicle inspections that Cash has undergone in his trucking career.

“During the past three years alone, he has undergone more than 195 Level VI Inspections, which is a higher and stricter inspection standard and procedure due to the materials being transported. A Level VI Inspection is conducted at the point of origin before the driver is permitted to start travel. The vehicle, driver and cargo must all be free of defects to pass inspection and proceed on their route. Over his 23 years transporting radioactive waste, Cash estimates he has successfully completed well over 1,000 CVSA Level VI Inspections, an extraordinary accomplishment given the frequency and rigor of inspections associated with the transportation of radioactive materials,” the CVSA said.

Cash shared the following advice for other professional drivers: “Be aware not just of what’s right in front of your truck, but what’s ahead of your truck – further down the road – and what’s going on behind your truck too.”