US urges Mexican companies to participate in program

Many critics in the United States say Mexican trucks on the nation's highways will erode safety, which is why the U.S. Department of Transportation is urging Mexican trucking companies to take part in its cross-border project to assure Mexican companies exercise trucking safety, reported the San Diego Union Times.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is heading the project, which is working to secure the benefits of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement signed by Canada, the United States and Mexico, reported the newspaper.

"It is what is going to help us collectively get beyond this 20-year logjam in implementing NAFTA," Marcelo Perez, an investigator with the FMCSA, told the paper.

According to the paper, officials with the FMSCA recently met with trucking companies in Tijuana in an effort to get Mexican trucking companies to participate in the project. So far, only two companies have received approval.

The Packer said there is growing interest in the project, with more than 20 Mexican trucking companies currently seeking approval from the FMCSA; however, of the two companies that have already gotten the go-ahead, only one has begun operations in the United States.

US urges Mexican companies to participate in program

Monday, February 27th, 2012