Mexico Trucker Online

An independent evaluation panel’s report on the U.S.-Mexico cross-border trucking demonstration project prepared at the request of Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters, definitively shows that Mexican domiciled trucks can operate safely and in compliance with all US laws and USDOT regulations.

The report was prepared by Mortimer L. Downey III, chairman of the board of PB Consult Inc., James T. Kolbe, senior advisor at McLarty Associates and a professor in the college of business at the University of Arizona, and Kenneth M. Mead, a special consultant at Baker Botts LLP and former inspector general of the Department of Transportation.

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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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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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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.

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.