(TTNews.com)
Posted on 02/24/2007 2:35:24 PM PST by Pete-R-Bilt
(TTNews.com) |
In return, 100 U.S. trucking companies will be allowed to operate in Mexico but at a later date.
Calling for congressional hearings, Teamsters General President Jimmy Hoffa compared the announcement to the "Dubai Ports debacle," charging President Bush is "playing a game of Russian roulette on America's highways."
As WND previously reported, the Teamsters Union has strongly protested the opening up of U.S. highways to Mexican trucks, citing safety concerns.
A spokesman for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies, told WND the senator plans to hold hearings March 8 on the DOT pilot program.
A statement from Murray's office said she wants "to find out if the administration has really met the safety requirements that the law and the American people demand before long-haul Mexican trucks can travel across all our highways."
A spokeman from the office of Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, told WND hearings will most likely be held by Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, chaired by Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.
Both Oberstar and DeFazio are traveling today and a spokesman from Oberstar's office said the lawmakers have not had a chance yet to confer, so no hearings have yet been scheduled.
Oberstar and DeFazio have posted statements on the homepage of the House Transportation and Infrastructure raising questions about DOT's proposed Mexican truck pilot program.
Todd Spencer, spokesman for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, told WND that "to reach a conclusion that the safety regime in Mexico is compatible in any way, shape, or form with what we have here in the U.S. is ignoring reality. Mexico has never had hours-in-service regulations or drug testing of drivers. We still can't verify the accuracy of somebody's Commercial Driver’s License in Mexico for safety or compliance."
Spencer stressed the decision is not just a border decision.
"Once Mexican trucks are in the United States on this pilot program, they can operate everywhere in the U.S.," Spencer told WND. "If some state highway policeman in Vermont or Iowa stops a Mexican commercial truck in their state, they have absolutely no idea of deciding if that vehicle is in compliance with federal safety requirements. Who's going to provide the training or the equipment for state police to verify the legality of a commercial truck from Mexico, in terms of its cargo, its haul, its log book, or even the driver? Local police aren't going to have a clue."
Hoffa cited Mexico's inability to satisfy the DOT Inspector General's requirements for safety that have been mandated to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, or FMCSA.
WND previously reported applications of some 678 Mexican motor carriers seeking long-haul authority to operate about 4,000 vehicles was being held up pending the completed DOT Inspector General's review of proposed FMCSA rules regarding safety reviews for Mexican trucks seeking to operate in the U.S., including rules for on-site safety inspections in Mexico.
The DOT spokesman also affirmed to WND the FMCSA has now drafted regulations that the DOT Inspector General has accepted, after an audit of the enforcement mechanisms and regulations the FMCSA created.
The Teamsters Union posed to WND a series of "unanswered questions," including:
According to a DOT spokesman, the pilot program "is predicated on the notion that Mexican trucks operating in the U.S. under the pilot program will operate pursuant to every single requirement that pertains to U.S. trucks operating in the United States, including both safety and security requirements on both the state and federal level."
DOT has increased its inspection staff by some 270 inspectors to implement the program. Still, DOT plans to continue the on-site inspection activities in Mexico that were announced by DOT Secretary Mary Peters earlier this week in Monterrey, Mexico.
The DOT spokesman confirmed there is no limit to the number of trucks the 100 Mexican trucking companies can operate in the United States. There is no restriction on the roads within the United States that the Mexican trucks can travel once they are admitted in the pilot program at the border.
The Mexican trucks, however, will be limited to carrying international cargo, in that they will be prohibited from stopping at one point in the U.S. destined for another point within the country.
On their return home, Mexican trucks, however, will be allowed to pick up in U.S. cargo originating in the U.S. destined for delivery back to Mexico.
While in the U.S., the Mexican drivers will operate under U.S. rules and regulations, including those controlling hours of time allowed at the wheel without a break.
The DOT spokesman specified that under agreements with Mexico already in effect, Mexican and U.S. commercial driver's licenses will be consider equivalent during the pilot program.
Mexican trucks operating in the United States will be required to have U.S. insurance coverage for all liabilities, including traffic accidents.
"The intent is for the Mexican trucking operations in the U.S. to be indistinguishable from U.S. trucking operations," the DOT spokesperson affirmed, "except that the driver and the truck began their trip in Mexico."
Here It Comes Again
Ping
"'The intent is for the Mexican trucking operations in the U.S. to be indistinguishable from U.S. trucking operations,' the DOT spokesperson affirmed"
Why?
BORDER PING
Why didn't the American people get to vote on this?
You know why
Having driven among Mexican trucks in Mexico, I can only say:
1. Re-up your uninsured motorist insurance
2. When you see a gaudily-lit smoke-belching behemoth with 18 bald tires, dozens of hood ornaments and a name painted on the nose coming at you....RUN!!
BOHICA!
The safety of MexiTrux is what scares me.
US Trucks have so many rules and regs to qualify the truck and the driver as safe to operate.
Just how the helk are we going to make sure the MexiPOS Trux are safe???
I see some of 'their' landscape dumptrucks and pickup trucks and they are literally dropping parts on the highway sometimes...
They're gonna get us all killed...
G
Haven't you heard?
Trucking is one of the jobs Americans don't wanna do, and there is a declared (by the administration) industry shortage of drivers so they (the Government) are here to help, by bringing on cheap labor...
Another part of the middle class is about to be flushed. Notice that U.S. operators will run in Mexico LATER. Why must we always take second place?
Wouldn't it be nice to have politicians that placed the welfare of the United States ahead of other countries?
Money trumps everything.
They are going to get some people killed. Someone gets to pay teh high price of someone else's cheap labor.
This decision was made by our elected officials. We are a Republic.
Do you have a problem with that?
Because the American over the road truck driver has just been outsourced.
The interesting thing is that for commercial drivers licenses you are required to have a functional knowledge of english.
Now, the decades old treaties on licenses is correctly appliced HOWEVER (this is the fun part), if a mexican drive has a citation for something (equiptment violation, speeding, DOT citation) and they do not attend to it, thier right to drive is suspended in the ENTIRE USA because all states have reciprocity on that issue.
I predict most mexican truck drivers will ignore citations thinking their mexican origin will protect their driving priviledge despite the fact it is suspended.
I would look to the teamsters to start giving anonymous tips to the highway patrols and to their DOT enforcements units.
Better yet get a lot of life insurance!!
There was something about this posted this morning to which I responded that there are already a lot of mexicans driving our trucks in this country. They come through this town with those big long gravel trucks [which do look like crummy gardeners trucks only much bigger] speeding in a 35 mph zone going 50-60 and nothing is done. Police never stop them, they don't have enough manpower...I've called. We have no truck route, so they go down the main street which is small. They have to go slow there or they would be killing pedestrians willy nilly...it's the incoming road @ 35mph where they don't slow until they have to.
No one does anything anymore in this country. The border is a sieve, now trucks carrying who knows what will enter the country and go where ever they want. Our children can buy and sell drugs like candy. They have to be afraid in school of gangs. Living close to a large city in Texas and watching the murder and mayhem from there is very frightening. It isn't going to stop........more illegals?..... yep bring on the trucks. We don't have the manpower to check them all. How about a little nuke or two?
These guys don't care who they maim or kill. Really! I've called the companies listed on the side of their trucks and reported them yet they still continue driving like maniacs.
I am definitely glad I grew up and lived most of my life before all this crap began. I'm personally sick of it. If we wind up with a prez hillery or obama.......ugh I can't even think about it. I really don't like any politicians these days. This very subject we're discussing is why. They're all full of hot air and lies and the country is paying dearly for it.
Ok sorry Pete you pinged me LOL........I got started and couldn't stop.....this stuff makes me so angry!!
Oh, OK. Now I understand. Sorry I said anything.
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