USDOT boss calls five year sentence ‘a slap on the wrist’ for truck driver in triple-fatality California crash

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke out against the prison sentence issued to a truck driver involved in a high-profile fatality crash in Ontario, California, last year.

On July 14, 2026, Jashanpreet Singh was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison after pleading guilty to three counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, the L.A. Times reports.

Singh, then 21, was behind the wheel of a semi truck involved in an eight-vehicle pileup crash that killed three people on October 21, 2025, on the westbound 10 Freeway in Ontario, California.

Four other people were hospitalized with injuries after the crash.

In the days after the crash, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an arrest detainer for Singh, stating that he was an Indian national who entered the U.S. illegally in 2022.

On the morning of July 15, 2026, Duffy issued a statement through social media promising to take action against unqualified commercial vehicle drivers.

“5 years is a slap on the wrist for KILLING 3 AMERICANS. If California followed the rules, illegal aliens like Jashanpreet Singh wouldn’t be driving 80,000 pound missiles down our roads We won’t stop until ALL illegal truckers are put out of business and held accountable,” Duffy said.

5 years is a slap on the wrist for KILLING 3 AMERICANS

If California followed the rules, illegal aliens like Jashanpreet Singh wouldn’t be driving 80,000 pound missiles down our roads

We won’t stop until ALL illegal truckers are put out of business and held accountable https://t.co/09BbHNeltn

— Secretary Sean Duffy (@SecDuffy) July 15, 2026

For more than a year, federal transportation authorities have worked to shore up loopholes for commercial vehicle drivers and to punish states like California deemed to be in non-compliance with current commercial driver’s license rules.