Quote:
Originally Posted by bulldog2036
What do they look like? Old Freightshakers, Peterbilts, Internationals, KW's, etc....cabovers included. All pieces of crap needing maintenance of one kind or another. And don't forget the obvious, Mexican co. name on it usually ending in "Fletes Mexico, S.A."...I know because I live on the Texas/Mexico border......
The larger fleets (the ones that will be asking for operating authority) run new equipment like Volvo, Kenworth, Freightliner, International, even Scania. Many of them use satellite tracking. The older trucks everyone sees on the border are the old trucks that local cartage firms use to shuttle trailers back and forth. No more beat up than your average local truck in New York City or Chicago. The trucking companies aren't going to put brand new trucks on that kind of sit and wait duty, that would be a waste of equipment.
You seldom see those newer trucks on this side of the border because the trailers are handed off to the local POS shuttle trucks. If you take a road trip into Mexico, for every delapidated Kenworth W900 with a 36" sleeper box you see smoking down the road you'll see a brand new Volvo VNL430 or Kenworth T600 Aerocab humming down the highway.
The average age of a Mexican fleet truck is a few years older than those in the US because Mexican firms buy the trucks outright. The corporate leases that the large US companies use for trucks that they keep for 2-3 years don't exist south of the border.
Of course there are carriers in Mexico who care more about profits than safety, but as we are well aware, there are plenty of fleets operating on this side of the border who are just as bad.
To automatically assume that all Mexican trucks are dangerous based on the ones you've seen running shuttle work would be as bad as a European basing their opinion on the US trucking industry on an old beat up Mack they see in traffic on the Long Island Expressway.