FMCSA oversight of Mexican truck pilot questioned

FMCSA oversight of Mexican truck pilot questioned Two influential House Democrats criticized the Department of Transportation on Tuesday for failing to implement several promised safety measures established by Congress as conditions for moving ahead with a demonstration project for Mexican trucks on U.S. highways.
   Last September, the DOT and its Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration began a project to permit up to 100 Mexican-based carriers to operate in the United States after they passed on-site safety reviews of road equipment, procedures, records and drivers. Mexico has a reciprocal effort in place for U.S. trucking companies.
   DOT Inspector General Calvin Scovel’s interim report on the program stated that FMCSA is not double-checking whether each Mexican truck was inspected every time it crossed the border, the small size of the program limits the ability to properly evaluate it, and state and local officials were not trained on how to enforce the pilot project rules at the onset of the program.
   Responding to the IG’s report, Rep. James Oberstar, chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Highway Subcommittee Chairman Peter DeFazio, said in a letter to DOT Secretary Mary Peters that the administration made “hollow promises” in an effort to rush the opening of the border and undercut U.S. surface transportation policy.
   Congress voted to strip money for the program in the department’s 2008 appropriations bill, but the issue is tied up in the courts.
   FMCSA has conducted 3,700 inspections at 25 border checkpoints at the six-month mark, but does not have quality control measures in place to make sure every required inspection is completed. The process involves checking whether the vehicle is driven by a licensed driver with English-language proficiency and whether it has an inspection decal. FMCSA’s plan called for it to obtain truck crossing data from Customs and Border Protection every month to double-check that every truck move is accounted for, but the Inspector General said the agency has not implemented this verification process.
   Scovel also said far fewer carriers and vehicles have participated in the program than expected, making it difficult to draw conclusions about the safety and economic impacts of allowing Mexican trucks to conduct long-haul operations in the United States. FMCSA officials had estimated that as many as 500 to 600 trucks would be hauling goods beyond the commercial border zone where Mexican trucks are normally limited. So far only 18 Mexican carriers are authorized to participate in the program (one recently dropped out), and only 13 percent (70 vehicles) of the estimated number of vehicles are participating. More than 90 percent of the trips taken by the Mexican carriers have been within the border zone and only 247 have gone beyond the zone — most of them to California.
   According to FMCSA, 28 additional carriers have qualified for the program but have not filed proof of insurance.
   FMCSA officials have said uncertainty about the program’s viability and its potential for expansion are due to congressional opposition and legal challenges from safety advocates, the Teamsters union and independent drivers have depressed potential interest by Mexican carriers.
   Officials in five states say they are now prepared to adequately enforce the rules of the pilot project after receiving additional guidance in recent months, the report said. Other safety steps being implemented by FMCSA include gathering insurance information on Mexican carriers, outfitting trucks with satellite tracking devices, taking steps to improve data on Mexican driver convictions in the United States and monitoring Mexican carrier records. ' Eric Kulisch