Mexico Trucker Online

The annual three-day inspection blitz known as Roadcheck takes place this week at more than 1,000 inspection locations at weigh stations and roadside checkpoints across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The annual event sponsored by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance is Tuesday through Thursday, June 3-5, and will involve tens of thousands of inspections by federal, state, provincial and local inspectors.

For Mexico Trucker, it will be the first time in almost 20 years I’ve worked during this event. Why? Well, my 10 year old Mexican owned Classic XL passed a Level I inspection in Louisiana last week so in theory, I won’t be subjected to the hassles of the event. According to Louisiana State Troopers Chesne at the St Martin scales, mine was the only truck in 72 hours which he put a sticker on. For me, it’s the hassle factor. They say it is for safety but in reality, safety takes a back seat to revenue enhancement.

Mexico began their participation yesterday. As I was returning from the house in Monterrey to the border to begin another work week, I encountered no less than 8 Federal Police units with Mexican big rigs on the side in pull offs undergoing inspection.

I can’t find any statistics for Mexico’s participation in Roadcheck 2007, but OOIDA is reporting,

CVSA reported that Mexican officials conducted just 139 inspections with 10 trucks being placed OOS and no driver violations.

I can’t find these figure anywhere on CVSA website so I would assume it is more of OOIDA spreading misinformation about Mexico and it’s trucking industry.

It will be an interesting day as I travel the border route from Laredo to El Paso and on to Denver tomorrow afternoon to see just how intensive this “blitz” is. In the past, it seems to have been, as Willy P. Shakesphere once said, “Much a doo doo over nada”!