Thread: Path cleared for Mexican truckers

http://www.joplinglobe.com/dailybusines ... d=topstory

Transportation in Joplin, one of several local trucking companies watching the effects of a pilot program that will allow Mexican truck drivers to haul freight throughout the United States.
Joplin Globe Photo /

Published August 22, 2006 12:59 am - Along with driver shortages and rising fuel costs, trucking company owner Mark Fields now worries about losing business to companies based in Mexico.

Path cleared for Mexican truckers
By Melissa Dunson

Along with driver shortages and rising fuel costs, trucking company owner Mark Fields now worries about losing business to companies based in Mexico.

But Fields, who has 20 trucks, might be surprised to learn that his soon-to-be, Mexican-based competitors face the same fear regarding him.

More than 10 years after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed with the idea of opening U.S. borders to Mexico and Canada for international trucking, Ian Grossman, an official with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said the Department of Transportation will announce a plan at the end of this year giving 100 Mexican carriers access into the United States for a one-year pilot program.

Mexican trucking companies are now taking loads within a designated area three to 20 miles past the U.S. border, and transferring the loads to U.S. trucks to deliver within the states. The same is true for U.S. loads being shipped into Mexico.

More competition

Small carriers like Fields’ JVF & Sons LLC in Joplin are concerned that they won’t be able to compete with Mexican trucking companies because of the difference in the countries’ wage rates.

Todd Spencer, a spokesman with the national Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said there already is a driver shortage in the industry. He said that if increased competition pushes down wages, recruiting will become even more difficult.

Fields agrees.

“They work for nothing, pretty much,” Fields said of Mexican-based drivers. “It’s going to make our pay go down even further. It’s going to impact us a lot.”

Spencer presented written testimony last month to the U.S. International Trade Commission citing studies showing that Mexican drivers’ pay is 25 percent to 50 percent of the amount U.S. drivers receive, which can range from $40,000 to $60,000 a year.

Larger trucking companies such as Joplin-based Contract Freighters Inc., which has more than 600 trucks in its fleet and serves all of North America, will face the same competition as small carriers, but they could benefit from the situation by potentially growing their businesses south of the border and increasing competition in the Mexican market.

Herb Schmidt, chief executive officer for CFI, said the policy changes aren’t as much of an issue for larger companies like his.

“It’s more of an issue for them (Mexican companies) than us,” Schmidt said. “It doesn’t scare us. We’re not intimidated by the competition. They still have to pick up and deliver on time just like us.

“In all honesty, most of them don’t have the financial wherewithal to make it here. They’re not accustomed to operating in the U.S., just like we’re not accustomed to operating in Mexico. They don’t relish having to come up here. They don’t want to come over here and compete. It’s more out of concern for their existence.”

Neither side agrees

The owner-operator association reported at the end of 2005 that some Mexican trucking companies were unhappy when U.S. congressional negotiators and the White House reached a deal on Nov. 28 allowing Mexican truckers to operate beyond the border.

The fear is not only American companies establishing themselves in Mexico, but that Mexican carriers won’t be able to compete in the U.S. marketplace, creating a lose-lose situation.

Schmidt said that if he had his way, the policy would retain the practice of Mexican and U.S. trucks handing off trailers at the border.

“I wish they’d just leave it the way it used to be,” he said. “It was a partnership in the truest sense of the word. When their business grew, our business grew, and vice versa. They serve our customers in Mexico, and we serve their customers here.”

Spencer, with the owner-operator group, said most of the Mexican carriers are happy with the current stop-at-the-border rules.

Schmidt said the competition with Mexico isn’t having a large impact on CFI’s business, but it has made a dent. While his company potentially could find benefits in an open-border situation, Schmidt said he is sympathetic toward smaller carriers.

Jason Bates, a spokesman for Tradewinds Transportation, a Joplin company with 34 trucks, said he is concerned about the difference in wages between the two countries, but he doesn’t think the competition will significantly affect areas more than one or two states from the border.

“We can’t pay our drivers what they do,” Bates said. “But they’re paying the same price for fuel. You might see an effect along the border, but most companies aren’t going to look to Mexico to fill their needs.

“I really don’t see it being a big problem.”

Bates said he is sympathetic toward the Mexican drivers. “Just because you’re from another country shouldn’t mean you can’t work in this country,” Bates said.

Grossman, with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, said the program is simply meant to implement the NAFTA provisions and is not the direct result of a push by the trucking industry. “The administration has always been in favor of implementing NAFTA,” Grossman said. “This is more of an administrative priority.”

Small carriers like Fields’ JVF & Sons LLC in Joplin are concerned that they won’t be able to compete with Mexican trucking companies because of the difference in the countries’ wage rates.

One things for sure and you guys know it. There's a big future in wrecker/roadservice when the Mexican junk hits our highways.

Jimmy Hoffa must be rolling over , where ever he is.
More American workers displaced by Mexican workers. Pity the motorists
who will be involved in accidents with these foriegn trucks. Will the drivers have any clue as to our rules of the road? I am sure the foreign trucks will all meet the inspection requirments and DOT, multi state laws American truckers have to adhere too.

Comming soon on an interstate near you,

Exit signs in Spanish
Taco trucks at gas stations and rest areas
new emergency phones (press 2 for english)
kids selling chicklets at toll booths

Will the drivers have any clue as to our rules of the road?

I'm sure we'll be expected to adapt to things like stop signs are only a "suggestion."

www.fmcsa.dot.gov/espanol/english/tm_index_ve...


This is the web site for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

Main Spanish Page

http://www.middletownpress.com/site/new ... 0856&rfi=6

08/25/2006
Truck bought on eBay has 39 violations
By: Jeff Mill




CROMWELL - Police credit a sharp-eyed trucker for drawing their attention to a rolling wreck Wednesday night, an ill-used tractor-trailer truck that was barely functioning.
When state transportation inspectors examined the truck, they found a total of 39 violations and ordered the truck off the road.
Captain Roy A. Nelson said the entire incident is a head-scratcher. The driver was a Mexican national who spoke virtually no English. And yet, he had traveled by bus from Mexico City to Providence, where he bought the tractor-trailer truck and two vehicles.
The driver was later identified as Victor Alonso-Malavez, 42, of Juquipilco, Mexico, a tiny town with a population just over 1,200 people located in mountainous terrain (elevation in excess of 9,000 feet) in south-central Mexico.
After he bought the vehicles, Nelson said, Alonso-Malavez loaded them into the tractor-trailer truck. He was apparently returning home to Mexico when he pulled off the road in Cromwell just after 8 p.m. Wednesday.
He rumbled down an exit ramp from Route 91 and pulled into a service station.
However, an employee of an over-the-road trucking company just happened to be in the same service station when the truck wheezed into the station, Nelson said.
"We got a call from a sharp-eyed citizen who said that we should get out there, that there was something amiss with a tractor-trailer truck and we should look into it," the captain said.
Officers responded to the service station; a cursory examination of the truck convinced them the caller was right - there was something amiss with the truck.
And so the police contacted the state Department of Motor Vehicle's truck squad, who sent an enforcement agent out to Cromwell.
The agent, Sgt. Donald Bridges, ordered the truck towed to a DMV facility in Middletown for a more complete examination. And then Bridges told Alonso-Malavez that he wasn't going anywhere just yet.
Nelson said Alonso-Malavez was cooperative but "had a limited knowledge of English." How limited? "Basically none," the captain confessed.
But he did use a cellular telephone to call a friend in Mexico City who did speak some English.
The friend explained to Sgt. Patrick Ahlquist that Alonso-Malavez had seen the trucks on eBay and had bought them, and then he had gone to Providence to collect them.
The friend told Ahlquist that Alonso-Malavez had paid $2,500 for the tractor-trailer truck.
He was casual about how he loaded the vehicles - a Ford Explorer and a Ford Ranger - into the decrepit trailer, police said. "He basically just drove them into the body of the truck and put the parking brake on," police said. "He didn't tie them down or anything."
On Thursday morning, a truck squad inspector went over the tractor-trailer truck in detail in the harsh light of day.
As he did, the number of violations began growing.
"They came up with 39 violations," Nelson said, "fourteen of which must be corrected before the truck can be put back on the road." However, it is questionable if the truck can ever be put back into operation: one of the violations found by the truck squad indicates that a portion of the truck's frame had "rotted out."
Alonso-Malavez was issued a summons for the violations, which taken together carry a fine of $1,114, Nelson said.





©The Middletown Press 2006

loservillelabor wrote:

[quote:2yu6q8qw]One things for sure and you guys know it. There's a big future in wrecker/roadservice when the Mexican junk hits our highways

[/quote:2yu6q8qw]

They are already on our hi ways. Drive from OC to anywhere East and they are everywhere. You can tell the difference between U.S. Truckers and Mexican truckers by the US DOT registration numbers on the US trucks. The Mexican trucks are just painted.

I drove from CO to AL and NC. They are everywhere and gas is sooo expensive, how do they afford it?

Are these tractor-trailers coming in here without inspection? Does anybody know?

How did the guy cross the border? Did he get a temporary visa of some sort? Did he expect to just drive the vehicles across the Mexican border. The article didn't really go into detail, but I have questions concerning the whole situation.