In the high-stakes arena of the Georgia U.S. Senate race, road safety has emerged as a central pillar of Republican candidate Mike Collins’ campaign. The congressman and trucking business owner has centered much of his messaging on a singular, provocative premise: that the path to safer American highways requires the removal of noncitizen drivers from the road. By framing the issue as a matter of national security and basic competence, Collins has positioned himself as a champion for the motoring public.
However, a closer examination of trucking safety regulations and the operational history of Collins’ own family business reveals a stark contrast between his political rhetoric and his corporate record. While Collins advocates for the revocation of licenses based on citizenship status, federal data and court records suggest that the risks on the road are often tied to operational negligence and a resistance to proven safety technologies—issues that have manifested within his own fleet.
The tension is not merely political. This proves a matter of public record. Over the last quarter-century, trucks operated by the Collins family business have been involved in accidents resulting in five deaths and more than 50 injuries. These figures, drawn from federal motor vehicle data and legal filings, raise critical questions about whether the candidate’s focus on foreign drivers is a genuine safety initiative or a political diversion from systemic safety failures within his own industry footprint.
As the campaign intensifies, the intersection of immigration policy and highway safety has become a flashpoint. For a candidate who utilizes his identity as a “trucking man” to establish authority on transportation issues, the gap between his public demands for safety and his private business practices provides a window into the broader debate over how America regulates its most dangerous vehicles.
The Political Pivot: Citizenship as a Safety Metric
Representative Mike Collins has leveraged social media and public interviews to argue that noncitizens lack the necessary linguistic and cultural fluency to navigate American roads safely. In a series of posts, Collins has asserted that the inability to read English road signs constitutes a fundamental safety risk, suggesting that those who cannot do so “don’t belong behind the wheel.”
This stance aligns him closely with efforts by the Trump administration to revoke commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) from nearly 200,000 noncitizen drivers. The policy is predicated on the idea that noncitizen status is a proxy for safety risk. However, this assertion lacks a foundation in empirical data. Internal government analyses have previously indicated that there is no measurable relationship between a driver’s citizenship status and the likelihood of causing a crash. According to reports from the Department of Homeland Security, the focus on noncitizen licenses often stems from specific high-profile cases rather than systemic data trends.
One such case used by Collins involves Akhror Bozorov, an undocumented trucker from Uzbekistan who was arrested after it was discovered he was wanted in his home country. Collins has used Bozorov’s case to attack political opponents and justify a sweeping ban on noncitizen CDLs. Yet, safety advocates argue that using a criminal outlier to justify the mass revocation of licenses ignores the actual drivers of road fatalities: speeding, fatigue, and the absence of safety technology.
The push to strip licenses from noncitizens has faced significant legal pushback. A coalition of nearly 20 Democratic state attorneys general argued that the administration’s rule lacked factual support, noting that in a year with over 4,000 deaths involving CDL drivers, only five were attributed to noncitizens. This disparity suggests that the “safety” argument may be a veneer for broader immigration goals, a point emphasized by legal challenges currently pending in federal courts.
A Record of Risk: The Collins Family Fleet
While Collins directs public attention toward the risks posed by foreign drivers, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) records for his family trucking business tell a different story. An analysis of federal motor vehicle data shows that the company has consistently struggled with unsafe driving and speeding violations.
Over the past two years, the business has exhibited a rate of unsafe driving and speeding violations per mile that exceeds that of the majority of similar trucking companies. While the company’s overall crash rate remains near the median for the industry, the severity of those crashes is a point of concern; the rate of injury resulting from these accidents sits in the top fifth of similar companies. This suggests that when the company’s trucks are involved in accidents, they are more likely to result in serious harm.
The human cost of these failures is documented in a series of harrowing legal battles. Since 2001, the fleet has been involved in more than 90 crashes. One particularly devastating 2007 incident saw a Collins trucker veer into oncoming traffic in North Carolina, resulting in a head-on collision with a Honda CR-V. Both the driver of the car, Bridget Murphy, and the trucker were killed. Court filings from 2009 indicate that the company’s insurer eventually paid a $1 million settlement to Murphy’s estate and passengers, though the company maintained the trucker suffered a “physical impairment beyond his control.”
Other lawsuits highlight a pattern of alleged negligence. In 2021, a trucker was accused of “negligent and reckless” driving in Indiana, causing a collision that forced the victim, Larkin Cooper, to abandon her nursing education. More recently, in 2023, a trucker failed to stop at a red light in northeast Georgia, causing a four-vehicle pileup. In these cases, the recurring theme is not the citizenship of the driver, but a failure to maintain safe distances and adhere to basic traffic laws.
The Technology Gap: Opposing Proven Safety Measures
Perhaps the most striking contradiction in Collins’ platform is his opposition to technological interventions that safety experts agree save lives. As a member of the House Transportation Committee, Collins has used his position to push back against mandates for speed limiters and automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems.
Speed limiters are devices that cap a truck’s maximum speed, preventing drivers from exceeding a set limit regardless of pedal pressure. The American Trucking Associations (ATA), the industry’s largest trade group and a member of which the Collins business is part, has expressed support for capping speeds between 65 and 70 miles per hour to reduce the severity of crashes. Despite this industry consensus, Collins has dismissed the need for such mandates, arguing that “speed limit signs” and insurance deterrents are sufficient.
Similarly, Collins has opposed the mandate for automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems. AEB technology uses sensors to detect an imminent collision and automatically applies the brakes if the driver fails to react. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and other federal officials estimated that such a mandate could prevent more than 8,000 injuries annually. Collins, however, has characterized the technology as “very expensive” and claimed it may actually do more harm than good—a claim that contradicts the findings of almost every major automotive safety organization.
The irony of this position is underscored by the nature of the accidents involving the Collins fleet. Several lawsuits against the company have alleged that its drivers failed to slow down or maintain safe distances—precisely the types of errors that AEB and speed limiters are designed to mitigate. By opposing these regulations, Collins is not only fighting “bureaucracy” but is actively resisting the adoption of tools that could have potentially prevented the very tragedies his company has faced.
Understanding the Regulatory Stakes
To understand why this conflict matters, one must look at how trucking safety regulations actually function. The FMCSA uses a Safety Measurement System (SMS) to track “BASICs” (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement categories), which include unsafe driving, crash indicator, and HOS (Hours of Service) compliance. When a company has a high rate of violations per mile, it becomes a target for increased inspections and potential intervention.
The debate over noncitizen CDLs is a distraction from these systemic metrics. The real danger on American roads is rarely a driver’s passport, but rather the “culture of speed” and the reluctance of fleet owners to invest in safety infrastructure. When a political leader advocates for the removal of a specific class of drivers while simultaneously fighting against the installation of life-saving brakes, the result is a net loss for public safety.
the economic impact of these policies is significant. The trucking industry is currently facing a chronic driver shortage. Revoking licenses from 200,000 noncitizens without empirical evidence of their danger could destabilize supply chains and increase costs for consumers, all while leaving the actual causes of accidents—such as driver fatigue and lack of AEB—unaddressed.
Key Comparison: Rhetoric vs. Reality
| Issue | Collins’ Public Position | Operational/Industry Reality |
|---|---|---|
| Noncitizen Drivers | Claims they make roads unsafe due to language barriers. | No empirical evidence links citizenship to higher crash rates. |
| Speed Limiters | Opposes mandates; claims signs are sufficient. | Supported by the ATA to reduce fatal high-speed crashes. |
| Emergency Braking | Claims technology is too expensive and ineffective. | NHTSA estimates 8,000+ injuries prevented annually. |
| Company Record | Positions himself as a safety expert. | Higher-than-average unsafe driving/speeding violations. |
The Path Forward: Accountability and Evidence
As the Georgia Senate race progresses, the voters will have to decide which version of “safety” they trust. One version is based on the visible, easily digestible narrative of immigration and national identity. The other is based on the tedious, data-driven reality of brake sensors, speed caps, and FMCSA violation reports.
The case of Mike Collins highlights a recurring theme in modern political discourse: the use of “common sense” arguments to override scientific and statistical evidence. To claim that a driver from Uzbekistan is a greater threat than a domestic driver who speeds and ignores braking distances is a claim that collapses under the weight of federal data.
For the trucking industry to truly become safer, the focus must shift from who is behind the wheel to how the vehicle is equipped and how the company is managed. The insistence on “getting bureaucrats out of trucks” often translates to removing the oversight that prevents catastrophic failure. When that philosophy is paired with a corporate history of fatal accidents, the result is a dangerous contradiction.
The next critical checkpoint for these issues will be the ongoing legal challenges to the Trump administration’s CDL revocation rule. If the courts find that the rule lacks a rational basis in safety data, it will serve as a significant rebuke to the platform Collins has championed. Any upcoming NHTSA hearings on AEB mandates will provide further clarity on whether safety technology will be prioritized over the cost-saving preferences of fleet owners.
We want to hear from you. Do you believe citizenship status should play a role in commercial licensing, or should the focus remain entirely on safety data and technology? Share your thoughts in the comments below and share this story to keep the conversation on road safety transparent.