OOIDA: Keep Mexican trucks out of U.S.

GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. (Feb. 9, 2001) — North America’s largest association of owner-operators is calling on President Bush to maintain travel restrictions on Mexican trucks until a system is in place to ensure that they meet U.S. safety standards.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, a Grain Valley, Mo., group with 40,000 members, said a North American Free Trade Agreement arbitration panel’s decision that the United States must open its borders to Mexican carriers would compromise public safety.

Under NAFTA, Mexican trucks were to have unrestriction access to travel in the United States starting last year. On Tuesday, the panel ruled that the government’s closed-border policy violates the agreement.

“Safety and economic concerns were never part of the negotiations. OOIDA is very concerned that neither country is yet prepared for the consequences of a border opened to more truck traffic,” OOIDA president Jim Johnston said in a press release.

On Wednesday, President Bush said he planned to lift the travel restrictions, but he offered no specific timetable.

Johnston is concerned that many Mexican trucks and drivers are unfit, unqualified, and uninsured.

“Beyond the physical conditions of a truck, states are ill equipped to review and enforce a trucker’s compliance with insurance, immigration, and customs rules,” Johnston said. “Allowing even more trucks to come into the U.S. will only exacerbate these problems, and we should not do it until we are prepared for the consequences.”