Mexican Trucks Are Headed North: Mexican trucks are coming to your town soon

Fox ^ | June 27, 2002

[sarcasm]

Transportation Secretary Norm Y. Mineta said Thursday that trucks that meet border inspections should be on American roads by mid-summer.

They will have to get through nearly 150 new border inspectors and 67 new safety auditors before they can travel into U.S. territory. If they don't, Mineta said, they won't be allowed on U.S. soil.

[sarcasm]

ping

[Marine Inspector]

As long as they meet the same standards as we impose on our truckers and Canadian truckers, I don't see a problem.

[sarcasm]

I doubt that they will ever meet the same standards.

[Marine Inspector]

Then they should sit in Mexico.

[sarcasm]

Mexico is sure to start screaming about truck profiling.

[Jagdgewehr]

Mexican Trucks Are Headed North: Mexican trucks are coming to your town soon

They're already here (San Diego).

[CIBvet]

How about the wage/pay discrepancy's with American workers. Do you see that as a problem?

[Vidalia]

More than four times the number of personnel work at the border now than did in mid-2001, Mineta said.

So now we have four times the idiot union workers, gathering four times the pay, doing the same stupid sh*t the first one did?

What the hamma jamma sh*t is that going to accomplish?

Buying votes is becoming very expensive to you and I the taxpayer, and we aren't receiving sh*t in return except for lies about security which isn't created from this unionized welfare payout.

This will not keep one person from being killed....

[Brownie74]

As long as they meet the same standards as we impose on our truckers and Canadian truckers, I don't see a problem.

It is not so much a question of standards as it is a problem with wage differences and competition. You can go into any truck stop in America and go into the drivers lounge and find drivers studying the TV(s) looking for loads to haul.

When I was driving I found that the work load to drivers ratio was pretty well balanced. The company that I worked for kept me moving and I made good money. But what is going to happen if Mexico dumps "X" many trucks and drivers off on us? It is going to hurt a lot of our drivers and the companies that they work for.

Another thing - In Mexico they do not have the amount of traffic and the multilevel freeway interchanges that we have in America. I know because I have driven all over Mexico from TJ to Veracruz. How are these drivers going to handle these situations when most of them can't even read English? With all of my driving experience and the mileage that I have logged, I would sometimes get confused out on the superslab.

I say NO to Mexican truckers - not only for safety reasons but also for economic reasons.

[raybbr]

I agree with you on every point. Also, what is going to happen when one these guys kills someone in an accident. Will we be allowed to prosecute? What about liability when they crush some poor unsuspecting American's car? Man, this is bad !!!!!!

[Brownie74]

Thank you. I have no idea how they will handle the insurance. They will probably just forge some papers and let the good times roll. That is just the way they do things in Mexico. Corruption is a way of life down there.

[jordan8]

"Borders have a way of blocking our vision, I see a region some day without walls."
-- Gov. Jane Hull

[Tancred]

Anyone know of a Spanish version of "Convoy" by C.W. McCall?

[Tancredo Fan]

Oh, lucky us. Drivers that don't even have to keep records in Mexico, and often drive 24 hours at a time. Looks like the Aztlan express to me.... a paradise of fast-track illegal aliens, drugs, nuclear weapons, terrorits, and who knows what else.... not to mention all the dead Americans killed by these rickety 80,000 pound piles of junk. But never fear, Mineta has it all under control. He's got a couple of hundred inspectors ready to go to work (LOL!). We're doomed.

[MissAmericanPie]

American truckers are a tuff bunch, do they have any objections to Mexican truckers?

[4Freedom]

When I was in Mexico, they called the buses the 'yellow plague', because they killed so many people.

They drove without their headlights at night to save their batteries. All you'd here was the roar of the engine and you knew to jump into a doorway to keep from being hit.

I never asked what they called their trucks.

[Twodees]

I don't see wage discrepancies as the real problem. To me the real problem is that Jihadi Joe can cross the border posing as a Mexican, hauling a tanker that passes inspection which he can exchange for another one readied for him somewhere inside the US and which he can tow into a population center and detonate.

The current state of emergency is plenty of reason to stop Mexican trucks indefinitely, regardless of what provision exists in NAFTA to allow Mexican trucks access to our highway system.

A little paranoia is a very good thing for national security on our borders right now.

[Regulator]

They drove without their headlights at night to save their batteries

My recollection is that the Mexican truckers do that too. They also had a charming habit of playing chicken with the cars on the (usually) two lane roads.

[deport]

Apparently they aren't lined up to get in just yet......

U.S. officials have said they do not expect Mexican long-haul carriers to flood across the border once it is declared open. Many will continue to operate within commercial border zones.

Last year, U.S. and Mexican commercial truck crossings totaled 4.3 million, including trucks that made multiple crossings. That's down from 4.5 million in 2000.

Mexican carriers have sought 20 applications for long-haul authority, which is permission to drive beyond the border zones, the report said. Thirteen of the applicants plan to operate a combined 59 long-haul commercial vehicles. The other seven applications were incomplete, the report said.