Sunday, September 02, 2007

 

Oh, freaking great!

The U.S. is now allowing Mexican companies free access to cross-border trucking.

Why am I not thrilled with this?
  1. It might hurt American trucking unions? -- no.

  2. Mexican trucks may not fall under the same emissions guidelines? -- no.

This one quote gives it all away:
"The government says [sic] it has imposed rigorous safety protocols in the program, including drug and alcohol testing for drivers done by U.S. companies. In addition, law enforcement officials have stepped up nationwide enforcement of a law that's been on the books since the 1970s requiring interstate truck and bus drivers to have a basic understanding of written and spoken English."

These "rigorous safety protocols" should also be in place for American trucking companies too. In fact, they probably are. But there is certainly a difference between having procedures and following AND enforcing those procedures or protocols.

If you live way out in the middle of no-where, or you keep yourself locked in your house and never travel, you may not see the big deal.

If, on the other hand, you've traveled anywhere in the last 10 years or so, you know what a PITA semi-trucks have become on our interstate system. They sit side by side for mile after mile going the same speed, and generally under a lower speed limit restriction than that of automobiles, essentially forming a rolling road block that can clog up traffic for miles. Don't believe me? Go drive on I-70 between Indianapolis and Terre Haute at nearly anytime of the day. Then, I dare you, look up into the cab and check out the ethnicity of the driver. Then, just for kicks, and you don't even have to observe semi-trucks, look at who is sitting in the left hand lane -- !the passing lane! -- doing 10 miles below the average speed of traffic. Chances are, they can't read English and they certainly don't understand our laws (or common courtesy for driving in the U.S.). Granted, there are Americans that somehow passed the drivers exam who think it is legal and appropriate to drive in any lane the wish (it is NOT), but those are, while completely annoying, generally few and far between (unless you happen to find yourself trying to navigate the stack of morons in SUVs traveling Georgia 400).

Pretty soon I'm going to lock myself in my house and not travel anywhere. God knows traveling by airplane went the way of dodo in terms of efficiency and convince a few years ago (and I'm talking pre-9/11 too -- the summer of 2000, and things never recovered).

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