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Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Last modified Monday, February 26, 2007 7:59 PM PST




Safety and savings too, what a deal

By: PHIL STRICKLAND - For the North County Times

Even before ink hit newsprint to bring you Saturday's column on vehicle safety, President Bush had announced that he is opening America's roads to Mexican truckers.

This long-delayed provision of the North American Free Trade Agreement is to go into effect in about 60 days. At present, they have been limited to border areas.

Now, you're probably worried that unsafe trucks operated by drivers who may not know or care about our rules of the road will be racing up Interstates 15 or 215 presenting a hazard to anyone unfortunate enough to share the asphalt with them.

What on Earth makes you think our amigos south of the border would do anything that would violate our laws or that potentially could cause grave harm to any one of us?

Just because every time we have commercial-vehicle checkpoints in Southwest County we find a high percentage of trucks operated by U.S. companies that don't meet safety standards, it would be unfair to tar Mexican truckers with the same brush.

Besides, we're assured by the federal Department of Transportation that every Mexican truck and driver will pass muster with U.S. inspectors before they're turned loose, oops, pardon, before they're given access to our highways.

Be warned. There are alarmists out there who question whether this is a good idea.

Take, for example, National Transportation Safety Board member Debbie Hersman who warns that diverting inspectors to the border will deplete the already scant resources available to keep an eye on what she calls "at-risk carriers" and hundreds of thousands of other truck companies.

Not only that, she claims that random inspections result in 25 percent of U.S. trucks being taken off the road. Further, she says in her sky-is-falling argument, a higher percentage of Mexican trucks are barred from the road at Texas border crossings.

Then, there's Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. She's all bothered because Mexican trucks don't have "black boxes" that record how long a driver has been on the road.

And what about that rabble-rousing Teamsters President Jim Hoffa? Imagine having the audacity to say that the plan amounts to playing "Russian roulette" on the highways.

Please, people, a little faith. You can't possibly believe our president would bend over backward to accommodate the Mexican government and U.S. businesses at the expense of your family's safety.

Besides, if we forgo transferring freight from Mexican trucks to American haulers, think of all the money U.S. companies can add to the bottom line.

For one thing, there are no union drivers to pay. Shoot, the Mexican drivers probably are just hauling stuff you can't get Americans to truck around anyway.

And you know the companies won't pocket all the savings. They're going to use some of it to hold the line on their prices for the benefit of American consumers.

So there you have it: The trucks and their drivers will be inspected with a fine-tooth comb to assure our safety; businesses will profit and consumers will save money; and those lucky U.S. truckers won't have to bother hauling that stuff.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Yeah boy, makes you kind of proud to be an American. And, don't forget grateful.

-- Phil Strickland of Temecula is a regular columnist for The Californian. E-mail: philipestrickland@yahoo.com.