Mexico Trucker Online

 

Not much happening in the world on this lazy Sunday evening so courtesy of my friend at The Mex Files, we’ll put this video out there for you to enjoy.

Besides some great sounds by the group Los Felinos de la Noche, it’s got some good behind the wheel video of Mexican highway 57, a road I’ve traveled many times.

You’ll be hard pressed to find the pot holed roads and dangerous antiguated junk trucks you’ve come to believe are everyday sights in Mexico.

Enjoy your Sunday

When Congress reconvenes in September, it may break San Antonio’s economic development heart.

A bill is pending a House vote that aims to end the U.S.-Mexico cross-border trucking pilot program that started a year ago — a program that has its roots in San Antonio.

The U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted unanimously July 31 on a resolution that would end the test program on its one-year anniversary on Sept. 6.

If the House and the Senate approve the resolution in one form or another, President Bush is expected to veto it unless it’s included in a larger measure. Still, opponents of cross-border trucking believe they have enough congressional votes to override a veto.

The proposal that led to the pilot project originated in San Antonio for economic reasons. A one-truck, one-driver truck freight system to and from Mexico means San Antonio could be a stopping point for warehousing and distribution services. It hadn’t been considered a stopping point before the test program began because all freight had to change carriers at the border about 150 miles away.

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The governing idea behind [cref nafta-for-dummies NAFTA] is to remove trade restrictions so as to encourage the free-flow of goods and services across the North American continent. Along the U.S. – Mexican border, however, the reality is that the ground transportation of such goods remains highly congested and drawn out. Long-haul trucks from Mexico are restricted from operating in the U.S. except within designated commercial zones located in border-cities such as San Diego, El Paso and Brownsville. At these sites, the contents of a truck must be unloaded and transferred onto a domestic carrier in order to continue to their final destination. Authorities estimate that this obvious kink in the supply chain costs U.S. consumers $400 million a year.

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Three white teens were charged today in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town.

Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the July 12 attack on Luis Ramirez.

A third teen, Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and other offenses. All are from Shenandoah, where the attack occurred.

Ramirez, 25, was beaten to death after an argument with a group of youths that police said included high school football players. Authorities could not immediately say if any of the suspects were members of the team, but they confirmed that all three used ethnic slurs during the fight.

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Yesterday was the tenth month of the Mexican Cross Border Pilot Program and an assessment of the performance of the participants reveals no surprises, at least for me. For those who oppose the program, the results might be an eye opener disputing Jimmy Hoffa’s claims of “dangerous Mexican trucks”. Ironically, it coincided with Byron Dorgan’s ultimately futile attempt to stop the program.

Methodology

Obviously, we took the USDOT numbers assigned to the participants and ran them through the FMCSA SAFERSYS database. All records are current through 6/20/2008.

Next, we choose the date range (09/11/2007) which was the date the first truck rolled across the border, to present. Despite organizations like OOIDA using a broader range of dates which encompass Mexican drayage operations to skew the data in their favor, this date range is all that is relevant to assess the performance and compliance of the participants.

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Senator Byron Lesly Dorgan, jumping at the command of Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa, offered an amendment to the 2009 Transportation Appropriations Bill aimed at shutting down the successful Mexican Cross Border Demonstration Truck Program.

Of course, Hoffa and OOIDA are praising the efforts, but the effort at what?

The current Cross Border Program is slated to end on September 11, This amendment would not take effect until October 1 at the earliest. But it still must go to conference and be reconciled with the HOuse version of the appropriations bill, voted on by the House and the full Senate and sent to the President for his signature. It will not happen during this administration.

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