LOL, that statement was made by two members of congress, supposedly, depending upon who paid them, it has nothing to do with a statement from the California DOT and it may are may not be true.
Here is another statement from the same meeting. You were cheering picking.
“Only about 1 percent of Mexican trucks entering the United States are inspected by the United States at the border, but 36 percent of those that are inspected are turned back for serious safety violations,” Sen. Dorgan says. “Mexico does not have the same safety standards we have in the United States,” he said as he introduced the bill. “There are no minimum safety standards for trucks or equipment, no limit on the hours a driver can stay on the road, no drug testing. These trucks will put people on America’s highways at serious risk. The American people don’t want to drive down the highway and find they are alongside a severely overloaded truck with someone in the driver seat who may have been on the road for 20 hours or more.”
I am not worried so much about the trucks themselves, although "our" government seems not to be able to find its *ss with both hands when it comes to enforcing trade violations committed by Mexico and other countries.
The greater problem is that Mexico does not keep track of driver records. Therefore, even if "our" government wanted to check driver records, that would be impossible.
Furthermore, corruption in Mexico is so rampant that we could never be confident that their drivers' documents (which, in a country that had its sh** together, could be linked to criminal records) matched the persons bearing them. Even if they use fingerprints, the person they fingerprint may not be who they think.
But don't worry! The Bush administration will go ahead with the program, even though it's not supposed to have funds from congress. Even if an administration that cares about its citizens succeeds Bush, it will have too much momentum by that time, and the courts and other powers will make sure it continues.
