Representative Mike Collins, a Republican from Georgia currently vying for one of the nation’s most contested U.S. Senate seats, has built a significant portion of his political identity around the image of the rugged, common-sense trucking businessman. His campaign ads feature him behind the wheel of a rig; his yard signs sport an American flag shaped like a semi-truck. But a detailed investigation by ProPublica reveals a stark disconnect between the congressman’s public vows to make American roads safer and the actual safety record of his family’s trucking business.
While Collins has used his platform to champion the revocation of commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) for noncitizens—claiming it is “purely a safety issue”—federal data and court records show that his own company has a history of deadly crashes and safety violations. Over the past 25 years, crashes involving truckers from Collins’ business have resulted in five deaths and more than 50 injuries. This includes a woman who now requires around-the-clock care due to a severe brain injury.
The tension lies in what Collins chooses to prioritize. While he pushes for policies targeting foreign drivers, he has consistently opposed the implementation of proven safety technologies that experts say would actually reduce fatalities. Such measures, including automatic braking systems and speed limiters, would have required Collins’ family business to invest substantial capital into its fleet.
A Record of Violations and Fatalities
According to an analysis of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) data conducted by ProPublica, Collins’ business exhibits a higher rate of unsafe driving and speeding violations per mile than the majority of trucking companies with similar mileage. While the company’s overall crash rate sits near the median for its peers, the rate of injury resulting from those crashes is in the top fifth of similar companies.
The human cost of these safety failures is documented in a series of lawsuits and police reports spanning decades. In 2007, a trucker for Collins’ business veered into oncoming traffic on a North Carolina highway, killing both the driver and Bridget Murphy, who was driving a Honda CR-V. Murphy’s estate and passengers later reached a $1 million settlement with the company’s insurer. The company maintained the trucker had suffered a “physical impairment beyond his control.”
Other incidents highlight a recurring pattern of alleged negligence. In 2021, a lawsuit in Indiana claimed a Collins trucker’s “negligent and reckless” lane change caused a collision that forced a nursing student to abandon her studies. More recently, in 2023, a trucker failed to stop at a red light in northeast Georgia, triggering a four-vehicle crash that left multiple drivers with serious injuries and medical bills exceeding $120,000.
The company’s struggles with safety are not new. In the 1990s, shortly after Mike Collins took over the family business, a trucker pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of cocaine after a crash that hospitalized a 19-year-old woman. It later emerged that the driver had pleaded no contest to a drunk-driving charge earlier that year but had remained on the road.
The Policy Paradox: Technology vs. Rhetoric
As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives’ transportation committee, Collins has had a direct hand in shaping federal safety policy. His approach has been characterized by a resistance to mandates that would impose costs on operators, including his own business, even when those mandates are supported by the industry’s largest trade group, the American Trucking Associations (ATA).
Collins has specifically pushed back against two key safety measures:
- Speed Limiters: The Biden administration proposed capping truck speeds as low as 60 mph. Collins opposed the rule, arguing that “speed limit signs” and insurance companies were sufficient deterrents. The Trump administration subsequently withdrew the proposal in 2025.
- Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB): These sensors can force a truck to unhurried down to avoid a collision. Federal officials estimated the mandate could prevent 8,000 injuries annually. Despite the ATA’s support, Collins argued the technology was “highly expensive” and claimed it was “hurting more than they’re helping.”
The contradiction is sharp: while Collins argues that “lives are at stake” regarding the citizenship of drivers, he has dismissed technologies designed to prevent the very types of “failure to slow down” crashes that have plagued his own fleet.
Safety Policy Comparison
| Proposed Measure | Expert/Industry Stance | Mike Collins’ Position |
|---|---|---|
| Speed Limiters | Supported by ATA (65-70 mph cap) | Opposed; cited “speed limit signs” |
| Automatic Braking | Est. 8,000 injuries prevented/year | Opposed; cited high cost/inefficiency |
| Noncitizen CDL Revocation | No empirical evidence of safety gain | Strongly supports as “purely a safety issue” |
Targeting Noncitizens Without Evidence
The centerpiece of Collins’ road safety platform is the effort to strip commercial licenses from nearly 200,000 noncitizen drivers. He has frequently used social media to amplify this message, including a video featuring a road sign from Uzbekistan to argue that drivers who cannot read English signs “don’t belong behind the wheel.”
Collins specifically highlighted the case of Akhror Bozorov, an undocumented trucker wanted in Uzbekistan for terrorism, to justify a broad crackdown. However, the Trump administration’s own initial analysis of the rule admitted there was “not sufficient evidence” to prove a measurable relationship between a driver’s citizenship status and safety outcomes.
This lack of evidence was echoed by nearly 20 Democratic state attorneys general, who noted that noncitizens with CDLs were responsible for only five fatal crashes out of more than 4,000 involving CDL drivers nationwide last year. Legal challenges to the rule are currently pending in court, with advocates arguing that the policy is based on political rhetoric rather than public safety data.
When asked for comment regarding his company’s safety record or his policy positions, neither Collins’ campaign nor his congressional office responded to ProPublica. His campaign manager declined to make him available for an interview.
Note: This article discusses legal settlements and federal safety data. The information provided is for journalistic purposes and does not constitute legal advice.
The legal battle over the revocation of noncitizen CDLs remains the next major checkpoint, as public interest lawyers continue their challenge in federal court. As the Georgia Senate race intensifies, the scrutiny of Collins’ business record is likely to become a central theme in the campaign’s discourse on public safety and corporate responsibility.
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