As if we didn't have enough ignorant illiterate fuckwits on the roads now.

Critics bash Mexican truck decision By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago WASHINGTON - The news that Mexican trucks will be allowed to haul freight deeper into the United States drew an angry reaction Friday from labor leaders, safety advocates and members of Congress. ADVERTISEMENT They said Mexico has substandard trucks and low-paid drivers that will threaten national security, cost thousands of jobs and endanger motorists on the northern side of the Mexican border. The Bush administration on Thursday announced its plan to have U.S. inspectors oversee Mexican trucking companies that carry cargo across the border. "This program will make trade with Mexico easier and keep our roads safe at the same time," Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said Friday. She announced details of the plan to let 100 Mexican trucking companies travel beyond the border area while she was in El Paso, Texas, at the Bridge of the Americas, which connects to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa: "They are playing a game of Russian roulette on America's highways." Access to all U.S. highways was promised by 2000 under the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, as was access through Mexico for U.S. carriers. That aspect of NAFTA was stalled by lawsuits and disagreements between the two countries, though Canadian and U.S. trucks travel freely across the northern border. The Bush pilot project will let Mexican truck companies travel from Mexico throughout the United States and back. No hazardous material shipments will be permitted. According to the Transportation Department, U.S. inspectors will inspect every truck and interview drivers to make sure they can read and speak English. They'll examine trucks and check the licenses, insurance and driving records of the Mexican drivers. Inspectors will also verify that the trucking companies are insured by U.S.-licensed firms. The first Mexican trucks are expected to drive into the United States beyond the border area in about 60 days, the Transportation Department says. National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman questioned how the U.S. could spare sending inspectors to Mexico when only a tiny percentage of the hundreds of thousands of U.S. truck companies are inspected every year. "They lack the inspectors to conduct safety reviews of at-risk domestic carriers," Hersman said. "That situation only gets worse if resources are diverted to the border." One-fourth of all U.S. trucks are taken off the road after random inspections because they're so unsafe, she said. An even higher percentage of Mexican trucks are taken off the road at Texas border crossings, she said. Mexican carriers insist their rigs meet U.S. standards. And according to the Transportation Department, 240 federal and 300 state government employees deal with Mexican truck issues. Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, said inspections will be meaningless because the trucks won't have black boxes that record how long a driver has been behind the wheel. "They have no way of telling how many hours these truck drivers have been driving before they get to the U.S., let alone when they get here," Claybrook said. Sen. Patty Murray (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, announced a March 8 hearing to determine whether the arrangement meets safety requirements. Rep. Peter DeFazio (news, bio, voting record), D-Ore., chair of the House Highways subcommittee, said Congress will keep a close eye on the program. Mexico responded to the U.S. announcement by saying it will allow trucks from 100 U.S. companies to travel across the border. Business groups have wanted the border opened to avoid middleman costs of transferring goods from Mexican to U.S. trucks. The American Trucking Associations said it supports the program, but wants to make sure that U.S. and Mexican truck companies are held to the same standards. "We also are waiting to see that when US carriers are allowed to travel into Mexico that the regulatory and permitting process that U.S. carriers undergo is fair and transparent," the ATA said in a statement.

God forbid MY FAMILY is harmed by one of these Mexican truckers.

Whatever is good for business (kleptocratic oligarchs).

Shut up, pay your taxes to .GOV, turn in your guns, move along now.  No North American Union to see here.

My dear God...

If Mexican truck drivers are half as bad as Cancun bus drivers we are all fucked.

They are 10 times worse

I will be interesting to see how the gooberement spins (or covers up) if the accident rates rise once this happens (as I believe they will).

They and the media do a damn fine job of ignoring how many people are killed/injured by illegals from Mexico.  I can hear the spin now: "But the lower cost of goods more than offsets the higher insurance rates Americans are paying..."  

BUT given that there will be far more bureaucrats and agencies involved in trucking accidents, they may not be able to keep a lid on it.

Said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa:

Did you get this article from The Onion??

I've been a truck driver since 1991 and any of you not in the bus. have NO idea how bad this is. Your worst nightmare X10.

Quoted: Said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa: Did you get this article from The Onion??

I think that is little Jimmy Hoffa Jr.

Wow I can't beleive I am siding with a Union, we need to get the Mexican truckers off the US roads.

There are too many "drivers" out on the road now that cant speak a lick of english. It is amazing they can even find where they are going.

This is way worse than you can imagine.

I'm really surprized that the Teamsters and the independant truck drivers weren't screamin' like banshee's over this.....

...back in the "old days" they'd have parked their trailers sideways across the highway-3 deep ...and jackrocked every side road that crossed the US-Mex border.

Quoted: I'm really surprized that the Teamsters and the independant truck drivers weren't screamin' like banshee's over this..... ...back in the "old days" they'd have parked their trailers sideways across the highway-3 deep ...and jackrocked every side road that crossed the US-Mex border.

Give them time to coordinate a response.

I see drivers every day that can't speak a word of english.. from every corner of the world.. that they're here don't know what the fuck they're doing and can't speak the language is nothing new..

BD

Waiting for Dave_A to tell us how this is good for American citizens.

Quoted: Said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa: Did you get this article from The Onion??

He's Jimmy Hoffa's son.

Kharn

This isn't going to be good.

I suppose it would be "racist" to expect them to uphold the same standards of safety and professionalism as our truckers

You should see how many truck drivers there are on I-10 and I-40 already that don't speak any English. Mostly with California plates.

Quoted: I suppose it would be "racist" to expect them to uphold the same standards of safety and professionalism as our truckers

Yeah it would.  You'd have the ACLU and half the limpdicks politicians in DC beating down your door if you did.

Well , aint that special . Beeners can hardly drive cars here much less a truck . Time to get underneth'm , get'm loose and put'm into the wall , old #3 style .

rut roh

Quoted: This isn't going to be good.

you got that right

Quoted: I suppose it would be "racist" to expect them to uphold the same standards of safety and professionalism as our truckers

LOL.. I thought that you used the word trucker, safety and professionalisim in the same sentence!! Oh wait.... You haven't seen many American truckers, have you.. Safe and professional is a matter of opinion.......

Quoted: Quoted: I suppose it would be "racist" to expect them to uphold the same standards of safety and professionalism as our truckers LOL.. I thought that you used the word trucker, safety and professionalisim in the same sentence!! Oh wait.... You haven't seen many American truckers, have you.. Safe and professional is a matter of opinion.......

Far safer than the car drivers

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I suppose it would be "racist" to expect them to uphold the same standards of safety and professionalism as our truckers LOL.. I thought that you used the word trucker, safety and professionalisim in the same sentence!! Oh wait.... You haven't seen many American truckers, have you.. Safe and professional is a matter of opinion....... Far safer than the car drivers

Sure.. so I guess that the trucker that cut across 2 lanes of traffic to use an off ramp/merg ramp as a bypass lane was just a car.. Yup..... Sorry, but Truckers drive the same way as car drivers do... the vast majoprity of them have their heads up their ass.

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I suppose it would be "racist" to expect them to uphold the same standards of safety and professionalism as our truckers LOL.. I thought that you used the word trucker, safety and professionalisim in the same sentence!! Oh wait.... You haven't seen many American truckers, have you.. Safe and professional is a matter of opinion....... Far safer than the car drivers Sure.. so I guess that the trucker that cut across 2 lanes of traffic to use an off ramp/merg ramp as a bypass lane was just a car.. Yup..... Sorry, but Truckers drive the same way as car drivers do... the vast majoprity of them have their heads up their ass.

Bet you can't come up with any statistics to back your position up.

Oh no, not more truck drivers........

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: I suppose it would be "racist" to expect them to uphold the same standards of safety and professionalism as our truckers LOL.. I thought that you used the word trucker, safety and professionalisim in the same sentence!! Oh wait.... You haven't seen many American truckers, have you.. Safe and professional is a matter of opinion....... Far safer than the car drivers Sure.. so I guess that the trucker that cut across 2 lanes of traffic to use an off ramp/merg ramp as a bypass lane was just a car.. Yup..... Sorry, but Truckers drive the same way as car drivers do... the vast majoprity of them have their heads up their ass. Bet you can't come up with any statistics to back your position up.

Don't give a damn enough to bother to look up statistics. I've been driving for many years, and have seen enough shitty drivers of both 18 wheelers and cars to know that both segments are 90% crappy drivers. There is a reason for the 'redneck truckdriver' stereotype.

Quoted: Quoted: I suppose it would be "racist" to expect them to uphold the same standards of safety and professionalism as our truckers LOL.. I thought that you used the word trucker, safety and professionalisim in the same sentence!! Oh wait.... You haven't seen many American truckers, have you.. Safe and professional is a matter of opinion.......

Everyone's different.  What I can say is that I have recieved more courtesy on the road from 18 wheelers than from my fellow 4-wheelers, and seen more dufuses (dufi?) do dumber things in cars than semis.  Not too long back I saw a guy in a car cut across 5 friggin lanes of rush hour packed interstate running at about 70mph to get to an exit ramp.  He ended up sideswiping one car and performing a perfect if unintentional PIT maneuver to a pickup which damn near flipped.  Never seen a trucker do that.

At any rate, word on the street is that no matter how bad American truckers are, the Mexican truckers are worse, and their equipment is not maintained well at all.

Caltrops!  Lots of caltrops!

Quoted: smiley.onegreatguy.net/yay2.gif

Can't.....stop....loooking....

GAH!

-Storm

Quoted: As if we didn't have enough ignorant illiterate fuckwits on the roads now. Critics bash Mexican truck decision Mexican carriers insist their rigs meet U.S. standards. And according to the Transportation Department, 240 federal and 300 state government employees deal with Mexican truck issues.

So 540 people are paid a yearly salry just to make sure the mexicans behave themselves and don't drive unsafe rigs.

Sounds like we are spending a whole crapload of money every year to allow mexican trucks on US roads. Other then appeasing the mexican government what is the friggin point of this???

Quoted: Quoted: As if we didn't have enough ignorant illiterate fuckwits on the roads now. Critics bash Mexican truck decision Mexican carriers insist their rigs meet U.S. standards. And according to the Transportation Department, 240 federal and 300 state government employees deal with Mexican truck issues. So 540 people are paid a yearly salry just to make sure the mexicans behave themselves and don't drive unsafe rigs. Sounds like we are spending a whole crapload of money every year to allow mexican trucks on US roads. Other then appeasing the mexican government what is the friggin point of this???

To expedite the invasion of the Chavez-Cuban army, of course.

Wonder how much more of this kind of shit the general population is willing to put up with before putting their foot down and tossing the morons from both political parties out of office that seem to be infatuated to pandering to illegals.  

Some 85% of the population supports much tighter border security, but noone seems to want to do anything about it.  

We subject ourselves willingly to stupid human tricks at the airports all in the name of security, but god forbid we inconvenience Jose trying to make a buck supporting is family back in Mexico.

I'm so tired of this shit.

And it's only getting worse...

Oh, you want to hear bad? Here's my story...

I was deployed to Guatemala for a humanitarian mission with the USAR; Operation New Horizons, 01; the whole rotation was not so bad, the weather was okay and the missions were typical for MPs (guard the sites while engineers from the US Army, Air Force and Marines built schools, dug water wells, paved roads and generally did the local GOV. job at your tax dollars' expense).

Anyways, we were a few days off from returning to CONUS and the battalion we were under decides to give us a nice cultural trip to the Peten-Tikal pyramid complex about 5 hours away; no problem; so these 3 buses come rolling into camp to take us to the place, right?

RED FLAG #1 - One of the buses blows a tire inside the camp; so now we are down to two buses to ferry about 100+ people; so they decide to pile half of one bus on our bus, the rest on the other. Now we have a typical "Greyhound" bus with about 40 passengers too many. Add to that, the fact that the buses don't have A/C; they are dusty and smell like they were hauling donkeys the previous day.

RED FLAG#2 - Now we are hauling ass (and I do mean hauling ass) down this shitty 2-lane paved road in the middle of the mountains, with little villages on either side and a pair of bus drivers that think they are hauling chickens to the market and not soldiers.

Oh, but wait; it gets better...

Now, I am trying not to think too much about the reaking smell of sweaty donkeys and vegetables that permeate the seats and the 90+ degree, highly humid heat inside and I see from the corner of my eye the other bus (the ones that is supposed to be behind us) racing parallel to us.

Now, bear in mind that this is a 2 lane country road that was probably paved in the 1980s; I immediately say WTF?! and the guy next to me (who happens to be a USMC major) looks to my left and his jaw goes right through the floorboard; now, bear in mind that among st us, we have a pack of Marines that are literally wanting to rip the bus driver's head off at this moment.

Now, I am just praying that this asshole doesn't lose control of the bus and plows down the steep hill we are racing through. Yeah! Pucker Factor reaching critical mass, folks.

FLAG #3 - As we reach a hill, the bus decides that it's quitting time; we end up running out of gas halfway up the 40 degree hill going up. it seems the genius behind the wheel forgot to gas up on the way to the camp and we end up walking about 300 meters up a hill and wait about several hours before the other bus turns around and picks us up. By this time, EVERYONE wanted a piece of the bus driver... Including yours truly.

If it wasn't for the fact that we raided the restaurant at the site and dried up the beer stock, we were close to lynching the bus drivers and the one that planned the whole trip to begin with.

Moral of the story - When you start seeing Red Flags; GTFO and Run Away.

(I swear I didn't make this up; I couldn't even if I wanted to.)

relax!

mexican trucks operate under different laws of physics than the rest of us


you'll be fine!