Mexico Trucker Online

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Oct 14

Mexico years ahead of US on medical requirements for commercial drivers

By PMC Cross Border Program View Comments

The Mexican Cross Border Pilot Program enters it 13 month without incident, accident or serious safety violations, the FMCSA has a medical review committee trying to rewrite the requirements for CDL medical examiners and the critics of the Pilot Program continue to insist that that requirements for a Mexican CDL or Licencia Federal Conductor are lax or non existent.

Once again, Mexico Truckers proves them wrong and exposes these outlandish claims being made by Jimmy Hoffa, Todd Spencer and the staff at Landline Now.

Let’s take a look at the medical requirements for a Mexican driver. They are very similar to what is being proposed for future rule making by the FMCSA. But wait! The FMCSA is still just kicking these requirements around, while in Mexico, they have been law for many years.

Oct 13

US Consulate in Monterrey attacked with guns and grenade

By PMC Mexico Today Comments Off

Unknown gunmen shot at the US Consulate in Monterrey and threw a grenade at the building, which did not explode. No one was injured according to a Consulate spokesman.

Two unidentified men approached the US Consulate General. One of them fired several times hitting the gates and a window. The second man threw a hand grenade which did not explode because the man forgot to pull the pin, according to the statement issued concerning Sunday mornings incident.

Six bullet casings from the pistol were found at the scene.

Local Police and US Federal investigators scoured the scene looking for more evidence, but at this time, no motive had been determined.

Tagged with: Consulate • features • Monterrey

Oct 10

Panic selling drives Mexican peso above 13-per-dollar mark

By PMC Mexico Today Comments Off

Traders are falling over themselves this week to unload Mexico’s currency, on fears that a U.S. economic downturn would savage Mexico’s economy.

The peso plunged to nearly 13.2 per dollar on Thursday from 12.3 on Wednesday and 10.9 at the end of September.

The latest dive has occurred despite heavy intervention by Mexico’s central bank to stem the rout. It’s the peso’s biggest drop in value since the country’s 1994 devaluation.

This is panic behavior,” said Alberto Bernal, head of emerging-markets research at Bulltick Capital Markets in Miami. “It has nothing to do with Mexico and everything to do with the U.S.”

Bernal said investors and currency traders naturally fear that the turmoil roiling financial markets in the U.S., Mexico’s largest trading partner, will have painful consequences for Mexico: falling exports, falling oil prices and falling remittances.

It all adds up to fewer dollars flowing south of the border, leading to an abrupt re-pricing of the peso.

The peso is just one of many emerging-market currencies that have slumped against the dollar in recent weeks, as investors have pulled funds from markets deemed high risks.

But the turnabout has been particularly hard on the peso, which in early August was below 10 per dollar — the strongest the Mexican currency had been since 2002.

Tagged with: Bank of Mexico • Economic Crisis • features

Oct 06

Gustavo Arellano: My dad, the illegal immigrant

By PMC Immigration Blog View Comments

Millions of Americans point to Ellis Island as the place where their family was first introduced to the United States. Others trace their ancestry to ships that dropped anchor centuries ago in New England. Still more greeted Lady Liberty by way of airplanes and a visa.

My father? He fondly remembers the comfortable space in the trunk of a Chevy Bel Air that was his ticket to the American dream.In 1968, Dad left his dying village of Jomulquillo, in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, to join his three older brothers in East Los Angeles.

Eighteen years old, impetuous and with a fourth-grade education, Lorenzo Arellano would have had to do months’ worth of paperwork to enter the United States legally – and there was still no guarantee that he’d be allowed to enter. Youth and a growling stomach have little patience, so my father paid a white woman – a U.S. citizen – to sneak him into the United States. In Tijuana, he squeezed into the Chevy’s trunk alongside a cousin and another man and prayed.

The Bel Air passed across the U.S.-Mexico border with no problem – the agents just waved it through. It sped north on Interstate 5 for an hour until it came to the Border Patrol checkpoint just south of San Clemente. The car slowed to a crawl, then stopped. A moment of tension. The migra gave the Chevy the OK to leave.

Tagged with: Arellano • features

Oct 04

Mexican drug initiative – Rehab for users, harsher penalties for dealers

By PMC Mexican Politics, Mexico Today Comments Off

Turning to Mexico’s increasing narcotics consumption, President Felipe Calderon has proposed stiffer penalties for small-time drug dealers while suspending punishment for addicts who agree to enter rehabilitation.

“Drugs are the slavery of this century,” Calderon said in a speech Friday. “Criminals seek to make slaves of children and youths. They seek to place drugs, sometimes free of charge, in schools, in neighborhoods, to create addictions, to generate dependency.”

Calderon’s initiative, part of a package of proposals aimed at bolstering his offensive against the country’s powerful drug traffickers, also includes procedures for cleaning up Mexico’s police forces and getting them to better coordinate enforcement efforts.

Tagged with: features • Mexican drug initiative

Oct 02

USDOT-OIG report NOT a condemnation of Mexican Cross Border Program nor Mexican Trucks in general

By PMC Cross Border Program, FMCSA Comments Off

On September 24, 2008, the USDOT Office of Inspector General issued an audit report entitled REPORT ON THE SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY OF FMCSA’S REVIEW OF CANADIAN/MEXICAN COMPLIANCE WITH FEDERAL COMMERCIAL MOTOR VEHICLE SAFETY STANDARDS.

Of course OOIDA jumped on this report with an article erroneously entitled Data flawed on Mexican truck safety reg compliance A glance would make you believe that Mexican trucks are not in compliance with FMCSA safety regs and this is not the case!

Steve Sommers on America’s Trucking Network told his few listeners that this report PROVES that Mexican trucks are not in compliance and, by the way Steve, thanks for the mention of the website here. That wasn’t too hard was it! But he wanted his listeners to feel vindicated by their beliefs that Mexican trucks don’t meet US standards. Again, Steve didn’t bother to read the report. Or, maybe he did and this was his way of continuing to spread his misinformation about Mexican trucks

Tagged with: ATN • features • FMCSA • OIG