Mexico Trucker Online

The Mexican Embassy in Washington DC just released a statement concerning the vote on HR-6630 to put an end to the Mexican Cross Border Pilot Program. The statement reflects my earlier opinion about the fallout from the action by the House of Representatives.

The Mexican Embassy said.

“The Government of Mexico is “deeply concerned” about the House vote and welcomes the administration’s intention to veto the measure.

“Mexico has fulfilled its NAFTA obligations and expects the U.S. do the same. Should the bill be enacted into law, the government of Mexico will consider taking all the appropriate actions, including remedies or countermeasures under the North American Free Trade Agreement,”

As well they should and they have every right to do so.

The White House, in a statement earlier in the day warning that senior advisers would recommend a veto, said U.S. and Mexican officials had “effectively addressed” any safety concerns. The White House also said terminating the program would damage trade with Mexico as well as hurt U.S. trucking firms participating in the program.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

I couldn’t help but break out laughing, or as Stevie Sommers puts it, “chuckle”, listening to OOIDA and LandlineNow on XM-171 last Thursday, I think it was, when they brought up the almost dead subject of the Cross Border Program.

I think Mark Reddig was talking with their Washington lobbyist about the status of the program and the comment was made;

All of us at OOIDA are working full time to see this program is stopped in it’s tracks!

Yep, 10 months into the program, and they’re working full time to stop a program that has been successful beyond even what I had imagined.

There have not been the tens of thousand of dangerous and broke down Mexican trucks invading the United States as promised by Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen.

The drayage trucks used within the border commercial zones have not ventured beyond that zone nor have they applied for acceptance into the program by the OP-1MX application process, as Todd Spencer of OOIDA would have you believe.

The trucks participating in the program have done so safely and without apparent accidents and incidents, contrary to what Jimmy Hoffa of the Teamsters would have you believe.

And yes, it appears participation is less than expected. And there could be a reason for that.

Mexican carrier executives are no different from their American and Canadian counterparts. They are in business to make money. If they don’t see the opportunity, they are not going to participate.

Fernando Paez of Transportes Olympics of Apodaca Nuevo Leon is a prime example. He has contracts with RegioMontano Steel of Monterrey to service their customers in the US and to return to Monterrey with raw materials for that customers. This he has done and done so with great success. And has his entry into the US freight market caused any economic hardship on American carriers or depressed the rates? Doubtful! Melton Truck lines hauls the same product and their terminal in Laredo Texas is full of trailer with the same product.

The carrier out of Mexicali, Transportes Rafa, with an account to provide a customer in California’s Central Valley with fruit baskets. How many American carriers are lined up to take this business away from the Rafa Bros.? Not many!

It was said by all the critics that these trucks would be used to transport drugs and illegals into the country and indeed, some of the South Arkansas tin hat crowd suggested nuclear materials for weapons. Guess what! Non of this has happened and won’t!

Sure, there have been stories of trucks being stopped and discovered to have drugs or illegals in them. But it has been proven here and on official government sites that the drugs and illegals come across the border by other means, stockpiled in safe houses until an American trucker, looking for a little quick cash, is stupid enough to accept a load.

Some are suggesting that FMCSA will try to extend the program by a year or two in order to bolster the statistics. Personally, I would think a year without accident or incident, coupled with the Mexican governments own safety statistics (yes, they do have databases) would be enough to prove the opposition to the program is a moot point.

And keeping in mind, after a successful year of the program, and I measure success by the no accident or incident statistics, it is going to be extremely difficult to justify pulling the plug on the program.

The big myth in all of this is that the Mexican carriers can operate cheaper and therefore undercut US rates which is not the case. Sure, they pay their drivers a little less than US carriers, but they also pay those drivers a per diem, cover their Social Security payments and have other perks that go with the job.

And when you consider the additional expenses required to enter into the program, obtain US operating authority, the high cost of US insurance, their costs of operations are equal to or slightly more than ours.

It’s all good business and those that would ignore that fact are the foolish ones. But we all know that OOIDA and others will continue to throw around false information and we will be here to debunk the myths with facts backed up by photos. That has been the success of Mexico Trucker.

Not to think I am totally down on OOIDA. They have apparently done some good fighting the new CARB restrictions in California. Their support of the TRUCC acts moving through Congress at the moment is a good thing for all the good they will do any of us. It is a panacea to a problem with roots deeper than these bills address. But on the issue of Mexican trucks, they are dead wrong and continually prove this by throwing out all the exaggerated misinformation.

We’ll all sit back and wait, but in my mind, we have much more important things to worry about at the moment.

Back in February, Mexico Trucker received a [cref guestbook request] for an interview, an occurrence that is fairly common reflecting the success of this site. Jessica Meyers, a UC Berkeley Grad student expressed interest in talking to us about the Cross Border Program.

On March 29, 2008, we spent a pleasant day with her and her accomplished photographer, Erich Schlegel, Senior Staff photographer for the Dallas Morning News based out of Austin.

Although Mexico Trucker was not mentioned in the article published today, we take pride in knowing that this site, and myself, was minimally responsible for the excellent article she wrote concerning the Cross Border Program. And while I am not in complete agreement with some of her conclusions, the majority validates what we have been preaching here all year. The Mexican trucks are as safe as any of ours, at least the ones which will be allowed in the US.

Here’s the article in it’s entirety.

By JESSICA MEYERS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
Jessica Meyers is a freelance writer based in Berkeley, Calif.
LAREDO – Javier Gonzalez is the middleman in a mandatory three-way handoff at Laredo’s World Trade Bridge. He picks up goods that have come from Mexico City and takes them across the border in a shuttle truck. He then hands them over to an U.S. truck or warehouse within a 25-mile commercial zone limit.

Trucks going into Mexico follow a similar procedure.

For 25 years, the system has worked that way, seeming to satisfy truckers and safety officials on both sides of the border.

But in 2001, seven years after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, the Department of Transportation and a NAFTA tribunal persuaded Congress to approve a pilot program that would allow specially registered U.S. and Mexican trucks to travel deep into each other’s countries. Twenty-nine trucking firms – 21 Mexican and eight U.S., including two from Texas – now take part in the program.

It was a gesture toward fulfilling NAFTA’s open-border requirement.

The program has been under fire in Washington from organized labor and environmentalists ever since.

A decision is expected any day on a lawsuit filed last August in federal court in San Francisco to block the program on the grounds that Mexican trucks failed to meet adequate safety requirements. The Teamsters Union, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Public Citizen and the Sierra Club formed an odd alliance to fight the Bush administration.

And in December, congressional opponents of expanded Mexican trucking in the U.S. persuaded colleagues to cut off funding for the pilot. Although the Transportation Department and the White House got it restored, Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat who heads the Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, is threatening to cut it off again.

NAFTA is a sticky word in Washington these days.

President Bush, Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper all defended the trade agreement at a recent summit in New Orleans. But Democratic contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton say they will rework it. And much to the Bush administration’s chagrin, Congress just blocked a vote on a Colombian free-trade agreement.

Here at the border, trucking is not about politics. It’s about practicality.

One Mexican trucking company owner sees no benefit to sending drivers deep into the U.S. Similarly, many American U.S. truckers appear content depositing their goods at Laredo’s warehouses.

“I would have to have my drivers go from Monterrey to Dallas and come back empty with nothing to reload,” said Transportes Aguila de Oro owner Genaro Gonzalez Amaro, who chose not to participate in the demonstration program.

“I would have to have my drivers educated in English, get truck permits for the U.S., extra insurance – too many obstacles. It’s not feasible,” he said, shrugging. “This cross-border program is just politics, a pact they made without consulting anybody.”

Selling the program

In Washington, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration officials are struggling to prove the merits of an expanded cross-border program. Trucks crossing the border are inspected more frequently and thoroughly than trucks on U.S. roads, they say.

On this particular sunny Friday, inspectors pull Javier Gonzalez aside and tell him in Spanish that he’s violating rules.

Inspectors notice a homemade metal connector wrapped around an air hose. That tie could burst open and cause the vehicle to lose its brakes, they tell the 23-year-old driver.

They usher Mr. Gonzalez, who was carrying recyclable plastics across the border, to the center of the bridge’s inspection compound. There, they cite him for not speaking English and tell him to call his boss in Mexico City as well as a repairman.

Such incidents are proof of the quality of inspections, even with Mexican drivers like Mr. Gonzalez dropping off goods just across the U.S. border, say officials with the motor carrier administration.

“These Mexican carriers are the most scrutinized and inspected,” said John Hill, head of the motor carrier administration. “I have U.S. trucks I don’t have as good data on.”

But program opponents – notably a consortium of insurance companies and consumer safety groups known as Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety – cite the case of Trinity Industries of Mexico. The Piedras Negras-based company, which had the greatest number of Mexican trucks participating in the program until it dropped out in February, had amassed scores of violations.

Santos Pecina, the motor carrier administration’s Texas division field supervisor, says these violations were minor and tabulated only because the trucks had to undergo such extensive border inspections.

Read the entire article at Dallas Morning News

More an more, the truth about Mexican trucks is coming to light, and it is certainly not what OOIDA, The Teamsters and others have tried to convince you about. Oh, and the driver, Javier Gonzalez, who was inspected while the reporters were present? A shuttle or drayage truck. Not a line haul rig.

Has anyone ever wondered why it seemed that FMCSA ignored the comments posted concerning Cross Border Program when making their decision to continue with the program? Did anyone with a brain read some of the 2300 comments posted, most in opposition to the program?

Here is an example of a comment posted on the FMCSA website during the comment period. FMCSA did read the comments and came to the correct conclusion that none of them gave any concise or reasoned argument against implementation of the program.

This comment here shows just how misinformed and prejudiced the commenter is. All of his assertions have been disproved here and in real life as the program enters it’s seventh month, with no accidents, no incidents and with great success.

June 20, 2007

Re: NAFTA Trucking Demonstration Project to
Allow Mexican-based Trucks into United States
Docket FMCSA-2007-28055

US Department of Transportation
Docket Operations
1200 New Jersey Ave.
Washington DC 20590

To the Department of Transportation:

This is my commentary to the above mandate you people are ramming down the American citizens’/American truckers’ throats. The vast majority of America does not want this!

Are you people in the White House and Department of Transportation INSANE? This Bill, which I have read in full, indicates a serious mental infliction, a severe case of stupidity, or simply a corporate backroom-boys deal to sell out and eventually destroy America and Americans on the grandest of scales!

Do you really expect us to BELIEVE that you will ENFORCE the items you claim to “require” of these Mexican-domiciled carriers? It is nothing more than rhetoric—we in the real world recognize and understand that word, “rhetoric”. We call it what it is—-“bullshit”.

You want to allow vehicles and drivers from a third-world country who know little of our language, less of our highway systems, and don’t give a rat’s ass about our laws or our people, to roam freely and frequently on our highways and in our neighborhoods? Are you willing to place YOUR loved ones directly into the path of one of these unregulated (see previous paragraph) vehicles or operators?

I am so furiously opposed to this betrayal-bill that I will come to Washington DC myself to venomously protest this heinous mandate! I will rally others to join me. Maybe American truckers should implement a “Washington DC Demonstration Project” the day before one of your holiday breaks begins. Would you THEN get the message?

I will try to tame my anger and state the obvious flaws:

• Their driver qualifications, criminal history checks, drug histories/testing, etc. are lax, while American drivers’ are rigorous. Not only is this a slap in the face/unfair to American drivers, it is potentially deadly to anyone on the highway.
• Foreigners are not familiar or trained for our highway systems, our cloverleaf intersections, our signage, our local, state and federal highway laws or our highway etiquette/customs. This is a formula for a tragedy. I have no doubt that if you can pull this scam off, the first and deadliest accidents will be the Mexican drivers going the wrong way–northbound in the southbound lane, or southbound on the northbound lane of an interstate highway. This is tragic when an automobile makes this mistake, but two 76,000 pound hunks of steel traveling 60 miles an hour hitting head-on will shake the earth all the way to Washington DC. All of you, the FMCSA, the DOT, the Bush Administration, and the Clinton Administration for implementing NAFTA—-you will all be directly responsible for the carnage. You will all answer to this, not only to the Americans, the news media, but especially to the Lord in Heaven when your actions are accounted for!
• In the event of an accident, many law enforcement will not know how to handle someone from Mexico, but they do know what to do with an American driver. If the accident requires investigation, charges, guess who will become responsible—regardless of the truth. And should there need to be appearances before a judge or a lawsuit or trial, if not arrested and detained immediately, guess who won’t show up for the proceedings?
• In the case of crimes upon property or crimes upon people, the Mexican driver can either disappear or simply finish the trip and return to Mexico. Incidentally, if you think they cannot disappear, then please report to the Census Bureau an accounting of the 15-25 MILLION illegal aliens in this country now.
• Mexico is the main source of illegal drugs of all kinds in this country. Illegal drugs are destroying our young people here. This is one of the main reasons why I wonder if you people are insane or just plain stupid!
• Not that the politicians (Bush included) care, but Mexico is the portal of undocumented persons, unknowns into the United States of America. We Americans cannot afford to take care of our healthcare expenses, pay our children’s tuitions, but our taxes pay for the undocumented to have what we cannot have. And speaking of unknowns entering our country does September 11, 2001 ring a bell???????
• You want to talk 911? Implement this incredibly ridiculous bill and the demand for hijacking airplanes will be replaced with more Bagdad-like methods. Hello?????!!!!!!! Is anybody there in Lobbyland THINKING???????
• You wealthy big-city people get your jollies in 5-star hotels with “Madams”. You go to “Gentlemen’s” clubs. These fine establishments hire doctors to assure disease-free entertainment. Outside of DC, on the nation’s highways and byways, things are done differently. Company can be found in back lots of ill-managed truck stops or by a knock on the door in an interstate rest area. It’s not likely that the women and men who knock can afford to have personally-hired physicians to treat the usual sexually transmitted diseases. So how to prevent the spread of new and foreign versions? ……..this conjures up words like “epidemic” and “plague”.
• Speaking of disease, TB is so rapidly being introduced via our 15-25 million uninvited, undocumented souls, that ER personnel are now tested vigorously and often. Yeah, let’s bring even more Mexican trucks into our country to spread TB/pertussis/STDs—Brilliant!
• And finally, we have a huge problem—undocumented, illegal people working for slave wages with no benefits. This is a burden on our hospitals, schools, and social services. A danger to our national security. These foreigners have more rights and benefits than the average American. While the American people worry about the state of the nation and their own life-situations, the DOT and the Decider are worried that there are others who are forced to walk or wade or tunnel across the Mexican/US border. Therefore they created a much better way to transport even more chattel—they designed a mandate in which Mexican trucks would deliver the product—truckloads of human commerce.

You should be ashamed of yourselves!

In conclusion, I will be following this issue and sending copies of this docket comment to others. You are destroying the fabric of America in this program. You people are pathetic! Signed, ***** ******
*******************
—Cynan, former OTR Trucker

This is courtesy of an “admin” on a site that is trying to put itself as the ramrod of the Truckers Shutdown. It speaks for the credibility of the site in question.

On my days off this week, I needed to get away and relax and not having but a couple of days, headed to Monterrey Nuevo Leon.

It’s a good destination, a world class city that can hold it’s own against any similar city in North America.

It’s good to have friends there, especially those in the travel industry. I don’t recognize the name of the American company I represented, but because of them, I was able to obtain a suite in a 5 star hotel in Monterrey’s Galeria section that normally is $2400 pesos per night and paid only $921.00 pesos. I could get used to this. Smoozing with the movers and shakers of Monterrey business.

After dinner at Atlantico Oyster Bar and Grill, located on the side of a hill in the Colonia San Jananimo, outside on the patio with an incredible view of Monterrey and its suburbs, took a drive downtown to the Gran Plaza and the new Paseo Santa Lucia riverwalk. A good way to unwind and temporarily set aside the pressures of work.

Total cost of this little adventure? About $150.00 all inclusive of hotel, food and fuel. What did you do with your days off?

I went to Monterrey on the toll road at a cost of $170 pesos for a car and returned on the free road, or “libre” since I was in no hurry. As usual, I had my camera at the ready.

As was reported by other sources, trying to make it sound derogatory towards the Mexican trucking industry, their turnaround cycle appears to be 12 years. Nothing wrong with that. With the proper care and maintenance, these trucks can go 1.5 million miles or more before they begin to show their age.

But it seems like the cycling of the equipment is happening now. Dealers all over Mexico have new units on the ready line for delivery to carriers in Mexico. Freightliner Columbia’s, and Kenworth Kenmex T-660 seem to be the truck of choice again. Aerodynamics are in, the square boxy look of years past is gone.

So once again, here is photographic proof that debunks the critics and know nothings ideas about what a Mexican truck really is. And to be honest, their opinions no longer matter. Nothing I do or say will change their minds. But the minds that are being changed are those of the general public who have absolutely no idea about the issue. And here is where we shine. While others are presenting opinions without facts, Mexico Trucker continues to debunk those misrepresentations with photographic, first person proof