Dorgan not opposed to Mexico trucks in U.S.; he just wants safety assurances
Sen. Byron Dorgan wants to make sure Mexico has a database for accidents, inspections and violations before resuming Mexico program.
By LYNDON FINNEY
The Trucker Staff
3/12/2009
WASHINGTON — Sen. Byron L. Dorgan says he’s not opposed to having Mexican trucks do long-haul deliveries into the U.S., he just wants to make certain that there is a reasonable level of safety for such a program.
“In my judgment, the Bush administration rushed to establish a demonstration program in September 2007, despite the fact that there were significant safety problems that had not been addressed,” Dorgan said in a letter to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood on March 6, some 10 days after Dorgan announced he had included language in the omnibus appropriations bill to terminate the program. “In fact, the Bush administration gave the green light for the pilot program just one hour after the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General had issued a report identifying some very troubling flaws with the program.”
The report cited three areas of concern:
• That the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which was charged with implementing the program, had not developed and implemented complete, coordinated plans for checking trucks and drivers participating in the demonstration project as they cross the border
• That the FMCSA needed to take further action so that state enforcement officials understood how to implement demonstration project guidance for areas such as testing English language proficiency among drivers and ensure that training initiatives filter down to the roadside inspectors, and
• That the FMCSA had implemented policies, rules and regulations that differed slightly from the language in 3 of 34 specific Section 350(a) requirements.
The most significant of these variations limited inspections of vehicles during on-site safety audits to those trucks that were available at the time of the review. “However, we have not identified any safety impacts arising from these differences if the controls cited by FMCSA, particularly checking every truck every time for an inspection decal, are put in place,” the OIG report stated.
FMCSA officials at the time said they met with the OIG’s office prior to the release of the report and then outlined how they would address each concern before the program was implemented.
John Hill, the former FMCSA administrator, repeatedly cited the perfect safety record of the pilot program under the Bush administration.
Dorgan also pointed to the lack of a centralized database in Mexico of accident reports, vehicle inspections and driver violations, something the OIG’s report noted.
“According to the Inspector General, this meant DOT officials doing ‘pre-inspections’ of Mexican carriers for the pilot program had to rely on the Mexican carrier to accurately self-report whether the carrier had accidents, or failed vehicle inspections or hired unsafe drivers,” Dorgan wrote to LaHood.
Dorgan said before he would be comfortable with Mexican long-haul trucks coming into the U.S., the database needs to be up and running in Mexico and there needs to be comparable safety standards and conditions in the two countries.
“When the comparable standards have been achieved, we can certainly move forward to allow Mexican trucks to do long hauls in the United States,” Dorgan said.
Lyndon Finney of The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at editor@thetrucker.com.