Aug 31
Licencia Federal de Conductor

Mexican CDL with annotations for integrated Medical Certification

A caller to a nationally known trucking news report show recently starting spewing his objections and telling all who would listen why Mexican trucks should be forever banned from US highways.

The days guest, a well known and respected journalist and trucking expert asked the caller;

“Where do you get this information?”

The caller, stunned at having his views questioned, stuttered and stammered for a moment and then blurted, “OOIDA of course!”

And the journalist responded that , and I’m paraphrasing, “That for all the time OOIDA has been objecting to Mexican trucks, they have not ventured one fact to support their oppostion”. The caller stammered a bit more and hung up.

The journalist was correct in his assessment as we’ve pointed out many times over the years, and the latest, from Mark H. Reddig, continues that trend.

In a blog post last week titled Questions about cross-border trucking? Here’s a couple of answers Reddig continued his campaign of fabrications and misinformation answering two questions.
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Mar 15

Plaque commemorating the San PatriciosFrom behind the bullet-scarred walls of an ancient fortress, the wail of bagpipes and a thundering bass drum echoed through a plaza in the center of Mexico City.

Passers-by stopped in their tracks. Children craned for a look as a platoon of Mexican bagpipers marched through the gates in tribute to a strange and divisive chapter of Irish-American history.

The bagpipers play each month in honor of the St. Patrick Battalion, a group of 600 Irish-American soldiers who switched sides to fight for Mexico in the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War. Mexico lost half its territory to the United States as a result of the war.
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Mar 09

Bus Crash in Arizona

The fatal bus crash in Arizona is being used by opportunists to oppose Mexican trucks and to add fuel to the immigration debate.

The bus belonging to TIERRA SANTA,  that rolled over on a busy interstate outside Phoenix, killing six people and leaving 16 others injured early Friday, is now being used as an example by opponents of allowing Mexican trucks on our highways (although they’ve been here for decades) and in others are using it in their vile opposition to reforming immigration and as an opportunity to bash Mexicans.

The bus, a late model Mercedes Benz Marcopolo,  was traveling from the central Mexican state of Zacatecas to Los Angeles.

It entered the United States at El Paso, Texas, and was traveling westbound on Interstate 10 with 22 passengers when it hit a pickup, veered onto the left shoulder of the road, then overcorrected in the opposite direction and rolled once before landing on its wheels. The roof of the bus was crushed and all of its windows were knocked out.

The crash occurred about 5:30 a.m. MST on the Gila River Indian Reservation near the community of Sacaton, some 25 miles south of downtown Phoenix. Two men and four women were thrown about 10 yards from the bus and killed.

The FMCSA says the bus was operating without the required %5 million dollar liability required of interstate bus companies and had been denied interstate operating authority. We also confirmed this on the FMCSA  SAFERSYS site.

A DIFFERENT STANDARD FOR BUSES

Tierra Santa, based in Los Angeles and Durango Mexico, is common of a problem we have in the United States when it concerns enforcement of motor vehicle laws between buses and big rigs.
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Mar 04
DOT Secretary Ray LaHood

Responding to a question by Senate Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Chairman Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who asked for an update on the Mexico truck program, LaHood said "We are finalizing a plan. The reason it is taking so long is there's a lot of moving parts.

Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said this morning that the DOT was close to coming up with a proposal to allow Mexican trucks access to the United States, under the rules of NAFTA.

LaHood was testifying at a hearing about the 2011 DOT budget before the Senate Subcommittee on Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

Responding to a question by subcommittee Chairman Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who asked for an update on the Mexico truck program, LaHood said “We are finalizing a plan. The reason it is taking so long is there’s a lot of moving parts.”

On March 1, 56 lawmakers sent a letter to Kirk and LaHood urging the Obama administration to resolve the nearly year-long dispute that started when Congress killed the program in the 2009 appropriations bill.
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Feb 19

Mexican Truck debate

The debate over Mexican trucks is back and becoming heated as the opponents resort to the same tired rhetoric that has been debunked time and again. This time, we believe the outcome will be different

The Obama administration has taken the first step toward renewing a pilot program that allows Mexican?truckers to operate within the U.S., as stipulated in the North American Free Trade Agreement, but still must work with Congress on fashioning a new program, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said Tuesday.

U.S.Trade Representative Ron Kirk told a news conference in Mexico last week that the Obama administration had taken the first step in coming up with a new program when it convinced Congress not to prohibit a cross-border program in the 2010 omnibus spending bill.

With that being said, the mexenophobes are beginning to come out from under their rocks. Some, such as Teamster’s Jimmy Hoffa, using the same old tired and debunked rhetoric that he’s spewed for the past 18 years.

Others, such as OOIDA, seems to have largely abandoned the misinformation about the safety concerns and are now attacking the tariffs, and a report last year concerning the C-TPAT program.
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Jul 06
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