KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 30 (UPI) -- A U.S. truckers group Thursday welcomed an act to monitor Mexican truckers in the United States.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents 150,000 small truck business trucking professionals in the United States and Canada, praised Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., for introducing the NAFTA Trucking Safety Act of 2007.
OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer said, "This legislation will go a long way to assure foreign trucks operating on U.S. soil do not represent a threat to highway safety or to our homeland security. It will also ensure our nation will be in a position to enforce its laws on foreign trucks while they are here."
OOIDA said the bill would impose U.S.-level requirements on trucks, trucking companies and drivers based in Mexico. "It would give U.S. officials the same capability to enforce laws applying to Mexican truck drivers as they have for enforcing laws that apply to U.S. drivers," the group said.
"Hunter's bill also would require that the (U.S. Department of Transportation) be able to prove databases exist on Mexican drivers that are equivalent in quality and reliability as those on U.S. drivers. The legislation would require that enforcement personnel have equal access to such databases, ensuring all truck drivers on our highways are who they say they are, and are equally qualified to be there," the OOIDA statement said.
OIIDA also noted that "once a Mexico-domiciled truck passes through the U.S. border with a permissible NAFTA shipment, there is currently no plan in place to monitor what that driver does once inside the United States."
"The establishment of this legislation is the only way the DOT's program should be allowed to go forward," Spencer said. "Otherwise, we should all think about staying off the highways."
