Texas-mexico Cross Border Truck Operations: Are Mexican Nafta Trucks Unsafe?

摘要

Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) border safety inspection facilities (BSIF) have been in operation, in temporary and permanent forms, since 2001. This paper presents inspection results on trucks inspected at Texas BSIFs from 2003 to 2006, comprising over 326,000 vehicle inspection records. Analysis indicated that Mexico domiciled trucks have lower out-of-service rates than U.S. trucks at most Texas/Mexico border crossings. This finding is noteworthy since border (drayage) vehicles are older on average than typical Texas highway trucks and counters the opinion that trucks from Mexico are unsafe and therefore should trot be allowed to enter the U.S.