02/09/2011  Posted by PMC at 22:34 on 02/09/2011 Comments Off
Teamsters file frivolous lawsuit seeking to stop Mexican Truck Program

At the 11th hour today, Teamsters, along with Public Citizen filed a lawsuit in 9th Circuit Court in San Francisco seeking to stop implementation of the Mexican Cross Border Program. The suit was filed against the US Department of Transportation and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration alleging that the pilot program sets standards that aren’t stringent enough for Mexican trucks and drivers. For example, the program waives a law requiring trucks to display proof of meeting federal safety standards, said Jonathan Weissglass, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. An official for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said the Teamsters ….Read More

 
 01/09/2011  Posted by PMC at 08:28 on 01/09/2011 Comments Off
Cross Border Trucking with Mexico - "It's going to happen, There is no way to stop it"

During the scheduled meeting of the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee in Alexandria Virginia yesterday, those were the words of  Carlos Sesma, an attorney representing Mexican trucking interests before the committee. And Sesma was correct. The MCSAC is a subcommittee of the FMCSA charged with overseeing the Mexican Cross Border Pilot Program. OOIDA Executive Vice-President Todd Spencer who is a member of the committee was making the usual asinine and totally false claims about the program. “What’s behind this is access to cheaper sources of labor,” Spencer claimed after the meeting, repeating the thoroughly debunked claim that it will put American ….Read More

 
 26/08/2011  Posted by PMC at 22:55 on 26/08/2011 Comments Off
A major win for OOIDA and Truckers as US 7th Court of Appeals tosses EOBR mandate

An opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in response to a lawsuit filed by the Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) against the mandate for Electronic Onboard Recorders (EOBR’s) has effectively vacated the regulation for now based on the argument of “driver harassment” and sent it back to the FMCSA for reconsideration and a possible rewrite. This is a major victory for US truckers who have fought against the implementation of this regulation. However, the fight continues as two Senators, Lamar Alexander and David Prior have a bill pending before Congress which would make this ….Read More

 
 24/08/2011  Posted by PMC at 06:35 on 24/08/2011 Comments Off
1 million truck violations cited at border crossing? The rest of the story

The rest of the story emerges about the El Paso times story we wrote about earlier this week, concerning the thousands of violations reported by Texas DPS inspectors at two commercial crossings in El Paso Texas. While we have some concerns about the number of violations reported over 4.5 years, the Times story claims 1.2 million inspections were done at the Zaragosa and Bridge of the Americas in El Paso, we could only find 811,574 inspections reported on the FMCSA NAFTA STATISTICS pages. Some have suggested that the numbers are flawed considering the man hours that would need to be ….Read More

 
 21/08/2011  Posted by PMC at 13:50 on 21/08/2011 Comments Off
1 million truck violations cited at border crossing? The story behind the story

Today’s El Paso Times has a piece out titled “1 Million Truck Violations Cited at Border Crossing”by Diana Washington who has in the past been a reputable reporter on things concerning the US/Mexico border in El Paso. But the story is misleading and just the sort of thing we expect OOIDA to jump on first thing tomorrow morning. So let’s defuse this bomb before they have a chance to use it. The story reads in full; Texas state inspectors in El Paso have found thousands of safety violations in trucks coming from Mexico, including bad brakes, flat tires, axle problems ….Read More

 
 05/08/2011  Posted by PMC at 00:13 on 05/08/2011 Comments Off
Mexican Labor Law and the Mexican Cross Border Trucking Debate

Much of the misinformation coming from opponents of cross border trucking with Mexico seems to be coming from ignorance of the country rather than deliberate attempts to misinform the public, I’d like to think, at least where the regulatory structure in Mexico is concerned. Two of those issues that have been forcibly pushed on the public is lack of Hours of Service Regulations in Mexico and what some perceive as a “weak” or non existent regulations for the Mexican trucking industry. Regulations of the trucking industry in Mexico is neither of those. The differences are enormous as trucking journalist Tim ….Read More

 
 21/07/2011  Posted by PMC at 01:35 on 21/07/2011 Comments Off
FMCSA refuses demand by OOIDA to delay cross border program with Mexico

It’s all procedural, but FMCSA has refused demands by the Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) to halt implementation of the Cross Border Pilot Program pending resolution of the frivolous and baseless lawsuit filed against the agency earlier this month. OOIDA’s legal counsel, Paul Cullen Sr. with The Cullen Law Firm, sent a letter to FMCSA on July 8 asking the agency to consent to stay the program pending resolution of the petition for review. FMCSA’s counsel denied the request on July 13. Under rules of procedure, OOIDA was  required to ask FMCSA for the stay because a party to ….Read More

 
 06/07/2011  Posted by PMC at 11:41 on 06/07/2011 Comments Off
US & Mexico sign agreement for Safe Secure Cross-Border Trucking Program

It’s official folks! U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes Dionisio Arturo Pèrez-Jàcome Friscione joined today in Mexico City to sign agreements resolving the dispute over long-haul, cross-border trucking services between the United States and Mexico. This agreement paves the way for Mexico to begin to lift 50% of the $2.4 billion in retaliatory tariffs that have been in place for more than two years, a result of the Obama Administration caving to pressure from the TEAMSTERS and OOIDA and defunding the previous highly successful Cross Border Demonstration Project. Pursuant to an agreement signed by the ….Read More

 
 28/06/2011  Posted by PMC at 00:32 on 28/06/2011 Comments Off
FMCSA Plans August Restart for Mexico Trucks Program

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration hopes to relaunch its controversial Mexican trucks pilot project by mid-August, according to an agency official. A formal agreement between the United States and Mexico could be signed in the next few weeks, William Quade, FMCSA’s associate administrator for enforcement, told Transport Topics last week. In a briefing last week to the agency’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee, Quade said the agency received nearly 2,000 public comments on its proposal to allow trucks from Mexico to deliver to destinations in the United States as mandated under the North American Free Trade Agreement ….Read More

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