Quintuple fatal in Virginia renews focus on English language in CDL licensures

Forty-four others were taken to area hospitals, three in critical condition. The bus carried 34 people, authorities said.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Dong could not speak English.

“He received his commercial drivers license from New York state in 2024,” Duffy wrote in a social media update on the crash. “Unacceptable. This is exactly why we are holding states accountable, enforcing the rules of the road, and cracking down on drivers who can’t speak English.

“If you can’t be properly trained, read our road signs, or communicate with law enforcement, you have no business driving a bus.”

He said any company, trainer or school that contributed to putting an unqualified driver on the road “will face intense scrutiny.”

Additional charges are pending.

Investigators say the bus “failed to slow for traffic,” hitting a Suburban and causing a chain-reaction crash of the stopped vehicles. The fatality in the Suburban was Priscilla Mafalda, 25, of Worcester, Mass.

The Suburban then hit an Acura, starting a fire. Killed were Dmitri Doncev, 45; Ecterina Doncev, 44; a 13-year-old girl; and a 7-year-old boy. The family lived in Greenfield, Mass. The parents immigrated from Moldova in 2008 and held jobs, respectively, as a nurse at Holyoke Medical Center and as a hairstylist.

Surveying the wreckage of the vehicles towed from the scene, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Derek Barrs in a network interview said, “The four people killed in that crash, when I looked over on the side of the vehicle that was on the trailer, the only thing I could see was a car seat that was there. It just puts things into perspective of how important that it is to make sure that you’ve got the most qualified people behind the wheel of a commercial motor vehicle or a commercial bus.

“It’s unacceptable. If you’re tired, or you don’t have the proper person behind the wheel, get out of the business or just don’t be behind the wheel of a vehicle. People’s lives are at stake.”

New York has been in hot water with federal agencies already, losing $73 million last month by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for failing to revoke “illegally issued nondomiciled commercial learner’s permits and commercial driver’s licenses.

North Carolina isn't immune either. An eastern North Carolina Baptist church, the Head Start program and a community college are among the entities hit with involuntary closures of CDL training programs.

Congressional action includes at least a half-dozen proposals related to CDL licensures. The Transportation Department in February instituted a rule requiring CDL tests to be English only.

“You take the test in English,” Duffy said at the time. “You can’t speak English; you can’t read English – you’re not going to do well on the test.”

Most signage in America, including electronic emergency messaging, is in English.

After the crash, Barrs said, “We have to take these bad actors off the roadway.”

Barrs said the bus crashed into stopped vehicles at 2:30 a.m. in a work zone.

“Stopped, and just plowed right through,” Barrs said.

Dong, 48, is in custody while being treated at the hospital. A magistrate has approved holding him without bond until he’s released from the hospital for a first court appearance.