NTSB Examines Mexican Truck Safety
"We're worried about rollover, we're worried about off-tracking (weaving in lanes) ... and the ability of these trucks to climb hills and make successful safe mergers," said Jerry Donaldson of the group Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
Mexican officials did not take part in Thursday's discussion.
The issue of allowing Mexican trucks nationwide access has become controversial as more and more goods flow across the border with the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Ninety percent of trade between the two countries moves by road.
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exas, Arizona and New Mexico.
The trade pact now targets Jan. 1, 2000, as the date to open all domestic highways to Mexican trucks, but President Clinton has said he will not honor that timetable.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives passed legislation earlier this month that would allow Mexican companies to be fined $10,000 or more if their trucks travel outside the narrow border
ones they are currently allowed in.
Critics, including some in Congress, say the vastly different U.S. and Mexican safety standards make opening U.S. roads to Mexican trucks a risky proposal.
Mexico doesn't require commercial trucks to have front brakes or undergo regular roadside inspections. Truck drivers there also don't need to keep logbooks or limit their hours behind the wheel. The U.S. limit is 10 hours at a stretch. And U.S. big-rigs are limited to 80,000 pounds gross weight when loaded. Mexico's requirement is 97,000 pounds.
Although spot inspections might catch unsafe trucks, "what we have now is a crazy quilt of practices and less-than-vigorous oversight" by some states, Donaldson said.
In 1996, American inspectors stopped 25,000 of the estimated 3 million trucks coming from Mexico and took 45% of them off the road for safety reasons, compared with 28% of U.S.-regulated big rigs, according to U.S. and Mexican figures presented at the public hearing.
A recent audit put the 1997 figure for Canadian trucks at 17%.
"There is still a significant amount of work which needs to be completed before further implementation of existing NAFTA provisions," said Eugene Conti Jr., assistant secretary for transportation policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation, in his opening remarks at the hearing. "We will continue to work actively with our Mexican partners to accomplish that work."
Thursday's NTSB hearing was the third of four the agency has scheduled on truck safety and the only one dealing with the Mexican truck issue.
After the final hearing in January, on licensing and health issues involving drivers, the board will make recommendations to the federal government, said NTSB Chairman Jim Hall.
"NAFTA offers the United States a great trade opportunity, and our oversight is needed to ensure that as trade barriers fall, standards for public safety remain high," Hall said.
