Too few carriers join DOT’s cross-border project for ‘statistically significant analysis’
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| Trucks wait to cross into the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico. |
The Mexican truckers enrolled in the cross-border trucking program have a good safety record, sometimes better than their U.S. counterparts, an independent report says. But the number of Mexican carriers participating in the Department of Transportation’s demonstration project is too small for a “statistically significant” analysis.
What’s more, the vast majority of the trucks in the program don’t travel more than 20 miles into the United States, staying in the commercial zone along the U.S.-Mexican border. The program was set up to allow a limited number of Mexican carriers to haul freight to points throughout the country.
“A larger sample of carriers is needed to make a statistically significant” safety comparison of Mexican carriers that enrolled in the program and the larger number that originally applied, a panel of independent observers said in the report, released Oct. 31.
The report — written by Mortimer L. Downey III, a former Clinton administration deputy transportation secretary; Kenneth M. Mead, former DOT inspector general; and former Republican member of Congress from Arizona James T. Kolbe — maybe too little, too late to save the program when the Obama administration and a new Congress take office next year.
Members of Congress and the Teamsters union have strongly opposed the one-year program, which Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters wants to extend for up to three more years. But with Democratic Sen. Barack Obama about to enter the White House and Democrats extending their majority in both the House and Senate, the DOT experiment is likely to end next year.
Although 700 Mexican carriers expressed an interest in the program, only 25 participated, the report said. That was a quarter of the carriers the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration anticipated enrolling when it launched the program in 2007.
The trucks operated by those 25 carriers made 12,000 border crossings in the first year of the program, but more than 85 percent of those trucks stayed within the border commercial zone, making direct deliveries to consignees in Texas and California.
The report found no accidents or crashes involving the Mexican carriers in the demonstration project.
There were 7,000 driver inspections and 1,400 truck inspections, in addition to safety checks made every time a Mexican truck enters the United States.
Less than 1 percent of the drivers inspected were placed out of service, while 8.7 percent of the trucks were pulled from service. That compares with a 23 percent overall out-of-service rate for U.S. trucks.
Overall, the Mexican carriers participating in the program were safer than comparable U.S. fleets, the report concluded. It also found that FMCSA had lived up to its safety commitments, establishing safety mechanisms at the border, ensuring enforcement of safety rules by state police and checking every truck every time it entered the United States.
The FMCSA hailed the report as a validation of its program.
“As the report makes clear ... U.S. and Mexican carriers can safely engage in cross-border trucking operations while providing U.S. drivers new opportunities to compete and succeed in a market where they previously were unable to operate,” FMCSA Administrator John Hill said in a statement.
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