Someone explain Mexican truckers having access to US roads?

[graywarrior]

I've been hearing about it but can only find rightwing sites accusing liberals of being racist over the concerns of allowing Mexicans to drive over the boarder.

Discuss?

[Horse with no Name]

1. NAFTA.

I should think everyone should be concerned about this because it hurts people on both sides of the border that are under the millionaire tax bracket.

[Rosemary2205]

7. Yep. -- I have a really FUNNY story about that too.

We were at Cades Cove in Smokey Mountain National Park in Tennessee. They had to close Cades Cove because a mexican trucker drove in there and got the damn thing stuck so bad it took 3 tow trucks and a volunteer veteran trucker from the waiting crowd to get it back out.

Some poor bride was stuck in the parking lot 4 hours late to her own wedding -- in tears of course. The rangers couldn't let her go in from the backside of the loop because the tow trucks were blocking that road too.

The mexican could not read or speak english. Someone in the crowd who spoke spanish figured out the directions he was given were wrong and the driver could not read the English road signs that told truckers Rt 441 was not suitable for truck traffic.

[rodeodance]

2. check out Lou Dobbs site as he has been harping on this.

[rfranklin]

3. Right wingers should be very afraid...those truckers will cross the border

abandon their trucks and head directly for the welfare offices with their pregnant wives who will give birth to a brown-skinned American who will be asking for food stamps before ya know it!

[Horse with no Name]

5. AFTER they steal your lettuce picking job

;)

[youngdem]

4. Republicans think truckers are somehow overpaid and shipping is expensive because of rich truckers

so, they want to allow Mexican truckers and Mexican trucks, both of which are less regulated, to drive US highways across the country, instead of just at border zones for NAFTA shipping. This would destroy more somewhat middle class jobs and would endanger Americans driving every day because of tired truckers driving unsafe trucks with virtual immunity because no lawyer is gonna sue some independent trucker from Oaxaca with a destroyed truck and no assets.

All you have to know about whether or not it is a good idea is that Bush is REALLY for it big time.

BAD, BAD, BAD. NO benefit except a few pennies cheaper a load perhaps. You get what you pay for though. Unsafe trucks with unaccountable, tired drivers. Instead of the money staying here and putting food on your neighbor's plate, it goes out of the country, untaxed.

All so Wally World can save 10 cents more per ton on shipping or some such nonsense.

Just bad.

[TomInTib]

6. I can explain it with one word.

effingcrazy.

Anyone who has spent any time on Mexican highways can tell you that this is going to be disastrous.

But WalMart is gonna love it.

Bring that cheap shit in thru lax Mexican ports, bypass just about all broker and Customs hassles.

So a few hundred Americans get snuffed every year by marginally competent Mexican drivers driving 18-wheeled carriers of carnage.

No way I am driving on any of those highways.

[graywarrior]

8. I heard that Mexican truckers can drive 24/7 if they want to, and then once they get inside the US

they need to drive 11 hours and then quit for the shift. But that's about all I've been hearing. Someone mentioned Lou Dobbs today, that's why I figured I'd ask. Sounds flaming to me.

[Elwood P Dowd]

9. Corporate republicans want

drivers that will drive longer hours for 75% less pay. It's part of NAFTA, and we are going to pay the price.

[graywarrior]

10. Bet the republicans use this during the elections