Mexico Trucker Online Articles

More misinformation about Mexican Trucks, this time from an obscure upstart organization

FMCSA inspector completes Level I inspection on rig owned by Transportes Olympic prior to the start of the Mexican Cross Border Program. And obscure drivers association now claims that many of the inspections were bogus

An excellent truckers blog, ASK THE TRUCKER, is reporting the latest challenge to allowing Mexican trucks expanded access to the United States, which is our obligation under the provisions of NAFTA.

They bring up the latest questions being raised by an obscure upstart group, OWNER OPERATORS UNITED, headed by Dan Little, a frequent commenter on this site.

Taking a ploy from the OOIDA playbook, which has been using unfounded accusations about Mexican trucks and drivers for 16 years, OOU has made the claim about “possible falsification of safety inspections on SafeStat in relation to Mexican trucks”

In a press release by OOU, Mr. Little states:

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AVOMEX International newest participant in Cross Border Program

OOIDA immediately responds with unsupported allegations against the company.

In what has become a common practice with OOIDA, they have once again gone on the attack against a participant in the Cross Border Program, citing statistics not in existence to further their fear mongering about non existent safety issues.

The latest target of their attack is AVOMEX INTERNATIONAL SA de CV, an importer of avocados, and other agricultural products.

This is not the first time OOIDA has selected this company to spotlight with erroneous information. They were after them while the initial PASA’s were being performed.

OOIDA makes this claim.

OOIDA’s Director of Regulatory Affairs Rick Craig pointed out that in the 12-month period ending Sept. 21, 2007, Avomex’s five trucks at that time had amassed 206 total violations in 172 inspections. That averages out to just slightly more than 41 violations per truck.

From Sept. 22, 2007 through Jan. 22, 2008, Avomex received 71 more violations in 41 inspections – well on pace to top the 206 violations in the preceding 12-month period.

What is the actual numbers, the truth?

According to data available on the FMCSA SAFESTAT database, the same one OOIDA claims to have used to make their claims, AVOMEX recieved, in a 30 month period prior to 2/22/2008, 374 vehicle inspections, resulting in 43 Out of Service Orders. That breaks down to 12.43 inspections per month or roughly 2.5 inspections per vehicle. A more realistic number than the ones cited by OOIDA. The OOS rate for the 5 trucks over a two and a half year period was 1.43 per month.

The bulk of the OOS orders occurred in 2005 and 2006 with only 10 occurring in 2007 and to date, only 1. Keeping in mind that these occurred as this company was conducting business under OP-2 authority restricting them to the commercial zone of the border.

This means that of the 374 inspections, this company passed, 331 of them without problems.

And what were these dangerous and unsafe violations that got the trucks shut down 43 times, and in OOIDA’s opinion is why the program should be halted? Let’s take a look.

CHECK THE STATS FOLLOWING THIS LINK

I can’t make a determination based on this data nor can OOIDA. Keep in mind this company pulls agricultural products and from what I am seeing, most of the trailers in the inspection reports are US registered and licensed while the power units are licensed in Mexico.

Also keep in mind, this is one of OOIDA’s little tricks they have been pulling since the program was announced. Each time Todd Spencer makes reference to a Mexican cross border truck, he wants you to believe that the participants in the Cross Border Program will use the same trucks they use in their drayage operations and this is simply not true.

And this is the proof. No conclusions should be made on any of these companies until sufficient program performance data is available from participation in the program.

But as the spokesman for FMCSA said before, “These are the types of tricks you pull when the facts are not on your side”!

Safety compliance of Cross Border program participants

FMCSA’s SAFESTAT database gives a comprehensive look at inspection results of all motor carriers authorized to operate in the United States.

We decided to take a look and see how the Mexican carriers enrolled in the cross border program were doing to date, and the results showed no surprises. To the contrary, it appears enforcement and oversight of these carriers, their drivers and equipment, is rigid and happening as promised by FMCSA.

Currently, there are 15 Mexican motor carriers enrolled in the program with a total of 54 trucks on the road and an equal number of drivers more or less.

SAFESTAT provides the ability to look back at the past 30 months of operation of all carriers, but for our purposes, we’re going to look at the period of September 2007 until the present.

555188 TRANSPORTES OLYMPIC, Let’s start with these guys, the first carrier to enter the program. According to Safestat, there have been 17 driver inspections with no violations found, but there is an interesting item.

There have been 16 vehicle inspections resulting in two Out of Service (OOS) orders. The strange thing about this is the first occurred during the much ballyhooed initial crossing.

A two hour Level One Inspection. The tractor and trailer were registered properly in Texas yet they nailed them on no CVSA sticker. But, they were given the proper stickers and the cross border program was underway.

To date, Tranportes Olympic has experienced no other problems.

650383 TRANSPORTES RAFA DE BAJA CALIFORNIA SA DE CV

3 Trucks and 2 drivers in the program. From 9/2007 until present, the drivers were inspected 9 times with only one OOS violation. FMCSA made this call.

Who wants to bet this driver is no longer employed by this carrier!

On the vehicle side, in the same period, 7 level one inspections were performed with 2 OOS orders. This was on the same truck, same day, different hours and different trailer.

Both items on the trailers and not a serious problem. A light bulb out and perhaps a couple of brake lines touching one another. For a US carrier and a driver with a good attitude, a warning or at most a fix it citation.

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