Mexico Trucker Online

For a year, OOIDA, as well as the Teamsters, has been filling the media with gross exaggerations, misrepresentation of facts and twisting the numbers to make them fit their agenda.

Well, it’s payback time, and boy, are they whining!

As they say, you play, you pay! Looks like OOIDA has gotten themselves blacklisted by the FMCSA Public Information Office. Pobrecitos!

Since August of 2007, OOIDA media (Land Line Magazine and “Land Line Now” on XM radio) have been on the blacklist. Our honest and passionate criticism of the president’s Mexican cross border pilot program placed us crossways with the administration and had us blackballed by public affairs officials within the U.S. Department of Transportation.

That is how Mexico Trucker came into being. Listening to people like Steve Sommers and his daddy, the Trucking Bozo offering “expert” opinion on a subject they knew nothing about, Mexico. And to this day and this moment, I am still looking for the illiterate third world country with bad highways and drunk and drugged truck drivers.

Speaking of Bozo and to make the point, anyone hear his show today? Besides talking about how all roads in Mexico were in bad condition, he went on to advise a caller that an American trucker crossing the border woud be inspected by the Mexican Customs agents, who would see the big fancy CB radio on the dash with the 5000w kicker. He would radio his friends in the Federal Highway Police who would stop the trucker and confiscate the equipment. What total and utter bullshit!

Never happened to me. My Suburban, my VW Jetta nor my classic Mercedes 300 Trubo Diesel have ever gotten a second glance from any of them. And when I drive them, they are equipped with a Garmin Nuvi GPS and XM Radio. Not to mention a few other “toys” I carry with me.

But back to the subject. Perhaps OOIDA should change their strategy concerning the Cross Border Program and debate on the merits, and not on the crap they think up to inflame the passions of the general public.

A nice idea, which I doubt will ever happen.

WASHINGTON – In her first public statements on the Mexican trucking controversy, U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters defended yesterday the pilot program that allows Mexican trucks to travel throughout the United States in defiance of a congressional order.

U.S. officials also responded to complaints that a Mexican carrier that withdrew from the program several days ago never should have qualified because of an allegedly poor safety record.

Peters got an earful of criticism from several lawmakers during a House appropriations transportation subcommittee hearing on President Bush’s proposed budget.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, accused Peters of being in violation of the law for continuing the five-month-old program, which opened the U.S.-Mexico border to crossings by authorized trucks from both countries and allowed Mexican trucks to travel beyond a previous 25-mile limit. Congress later passed a law to shut off program funding.

“It’s a mystery to me why, with all the other transportation needs we have in this country, you’re spending money on a program that we specifically asked you not to do,” Kaptur said.

Peters reiterated the administration’s view that the law enacted in December was too narrowly worded to end the program – scheduled to continue through September.

She emphasized what she said were the program’s strict requirements to ensure that Mexican carriers comply with U.S. safety standards.

“There have been no safety incidents involving these vehicles to date,” Peters said.

None of the 42 Mexican trucks enrolled in the program has been involved in an accident, officials said.

They said the Mexican trucks have compiled an average 10 percent “out of service” rate since the program began – meaning that 10 percent of the vehicles that were pulled over for inspections were put out of service until violations were corrected.

That’s less than half the 23 percent out-of-service rate for U.S. trucks, according to the agency.

The Teamsters Union, a foe of the project, slammed the Department of Transportation for allowing a Mexican carrier, Trinity Industries of Mexico, based in Piedras Negras, Mexico, to join the program after racking up an average of 112 safety violations per truck in the previous year. DOT spokesman Brian G. Turmail said the carrier was approved because the “vast majority of (violations) were relatively minor.”

Trinity qualified for the program in November but withdrew Feb. 1 and never sent any trucks into the United States beyond the commercial border strip.

Leonel Olivares, terminal manager at Trinity Industries in Eagle Pass, Texas, said its Mexican affiliate “never had intentions of the drivers actually driving into the States. They just wanted to look at the program,” he said.

I noticed a spike in visitors to the site today and I assumed they were looking for my reaction to the announcement that the Teamster’s are mounting a “grass roots” campaign to have Secretary of Transportation “fired”!

My reaction? Who gives a rat’s ass! We’ve grown used to the lies and exaggerations of this group when anything concerning the Cross Border program is brought up.

We’ve listened to Hoffa’s whining and his allegations without proof about the program. And now, like a child, he resorts to character assassination of a good woman doing the job she was hired to do.

Seems to me he is a little worried that his frivolous lawsuit will fail next week in 9th Circuit.

We’ll wait and see what they decide. And if they decide for the plaintiff’s, then anyone who thinks Mexican trucks will disappear from the roadways of this nation, is living in a bubble.

As for the effort to defame Ms Peter’s? I seriously doubt we’ll be seeing many of the bumper stickers and window signs. Because like the Cross Border Program, it is of interest to a select few who object to anything that has any connection to Mexico.

And perhaps it’s time Jimmy Hoffa Jr joined his daddy. The world would be a better place

After all the hoopla and accompanying scorn and rhetoric by those in Congress paid to oppose the Mexican Demonstration Project, members of a group led by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary E. Peters visited a commercial vehicle-inspection station in El Paso to observe safety inspections required of all Mexican trucks entering the United States under the program, said Brian Turmail, a Transportation Department spokes man.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters today joined with U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez and Mexican Transportation Secretary Luis Tellez in calling on Congress to reconsider its pending prohibition and let the cross border trucking demonstration program between the two nations proceed.

“With the change of just a few words, Congress can show that we can trade with the world, keep our highways safe, and our companies competitive at the same time,” Secretary Peters said.

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It’s been about a month now since the controversial demonstration program was launched. The FMCSA, as is their right, has now approved [cref mexican-carriers-with-authority-to-operate-in-us-updated-daily 5 Mexican carriers] who have met the super strict requirements for participation in the program.

These five carriers, with a total of 15 units cleared to operate in the U.S. are geographically diverse. From Nuevo Leon, to Guanajuato to Jalisco to Baja California, they all appear to be specialty carriers and no threat to the American owner operator.

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