Off The Cuff

Mexican Trucks Allowed To Drive In The U.S.

Posted by: From Arkansas in Are You Kidding Me?, Give Me A Break, It's A Rant on Sep 03 2007

Welcome back!

I have to tell you that this one is going to be a rant. I cannot help that. If you have read this blog anytime recently, I mentioned that I am an ex over-the-road trucker. Specifically, I spent the better part of 8 1/2 years driving back and forth between the west coast and the east coast. The west coast loads most of our veggies coming back east. We get produce from California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico.

However, some of those veggies are not actually from those states. That is simply where the broker for the load happens to be. The load of produce could easily have come from Mexico. Many days I sat and waited out a truck hauling produce that had to stop at the border to transfer from the Mexican truck to a U.S. truck and then it brought the load to where I was. They divided the load out to the trucks that had orders. Each of us, who had gathered a pallet here, a pallet there from several companies, were now ready to head to the destinations, in my case back east, usually to New York at the farmer’s market. Sounds like it would be great if the truck from Mexico could just come on to the broker warehouse, right? No.

The problem is that despite the fact that our trucks and companies then were not allowed to take trucks into Mexico, Mexican trucks are now allowed into the United States. This is a huge mistake since many of the trucks haul illegal aliens and drugs. Of course, the U.S. trucks did that too. It will simply compound the problem, as I see it.

What about regulations that the U.S. drivers have to abide by? There will not be the strict oversight of the Mexican trucks. I cannot see how. The border patrol is stretched thin now.

Having the Mexican trucks come into the U.S. also takes the loads away from the U.S. drivers who need the work. We must think of that too. The Bush administration put forward this pilot program to bring up to 100 Mexican companies to haul into the U.S. Then, the Teamsters and the Sierra Club went to court over it. On Sept. 1st, the court decided that the Mexican companies can bring trucks into the United States. What seems to be the bigger problem is that there will not be enough oversight concerning these trucks.

This is not good for us either. You can bet that there will be more illegal aliens, more drugs and a whole lot more problems. Do I think that all trucking companies from Mexico are like that? Absolutely not!!! I firmly believe that there are many honest businesspeople in Mexico. But there are some that are going to take advantage of the situation, no matter what.

Are you kidding me? A company I worked for was hauling drugs. As a driver, I never knew when or if I had drugs in my truck. It was only a rumor and we never really knew for certain but there were weird loads once in a while. There was nothing I could pinpoint so there was no way I could report it. Sigh. No way did I want to get involved in that sort of thing. I am against drugs totally. And for the record, I did not stay long after I found out about that.

For those who do not understand, there is absolutely no way for the driver to know one way or the other unless someone is giving that information to him or her. The trucks are almost always sealed. If they are not, then it would take a long time to go through every single box on a 45,000 lb. load. Not gonna happen.

Am I unhappy? Right! This schedule of trucks coming into the U.S. starts Thursday. This is not a good situation.

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