Life on the Road - Trucking News Blog

What would life on the road be without trucks and what would a site called Life on the Road be without pictures of trucks.

And since it is no secret that I live in Mexico and have long been an advocate of allowing select Mexican carriers access to the United States what better than to show the readers exactly what a Mexican truck really is. I think you’ll be surprised.

I work for a Mexican owned company with operations on both sides of the border. We do line haul in the United States and within the eastern half of Mexico as far south as Toluca, which is a suburb of Mexico City. None of our equipment is older than 5 years old and the line trucks have all been replaced with 2007 Peterbilt 387, such as the one I drive.

And these are not the exceptions to Mexican line haul trucks, but the example.

Over the 4th of July holiday, I took another road trip to visit friends in ReynosaTamaulipas, a border town about 150 miles south of Laredo. And as usual, I chose to drive down Mexico Hwy 2, instead of using the more crowded US 83. Makes for a shorter trip you know.

Leaving Laredo and heading south on Mx 85, all the truck dealers are situated on this stretch of highway. I really wasn’t surprised when passing the Kenworth dealership to see a rather large order of T660 conventional ready for delivery to a Mexican line haul company.

It was an uneventful trip going down. Not being a holiday in Mexico, the trucks were rolling. On this particular highway, mostly dump trucks and tankers servicing the PEMEX oil and gas fields which proliferate on both sides of Highway 2.

Surprisingly, I did not see any of the “old wore out American Junk” that is the mainstay of the Mexican trucking industry, as some people believe. Everything on the highway was from the 4 major manufacturers. KW, Pete, Freightliner and International. It seems the line haul companies prefer Freightliner Columbias and Kenworth’s while the heavy haul dump trucks and tankers prefer the more durable and sturdy International 9400’s.

This is representative of the fleets in Mexico, not the fantasy fleets dreamed up in the imaginations of the opponents of the Mexican Truck initiative. And certainly, the border shuttle trucks that provide drayage from the factories in Nuevo Laredo to Laredo, are not at all representative.

But yes, there are junk trucks in Mexico. Some 50 years old and still doing a days work for their owners. They’re the trucks that haul the grain and cottonseed from the farms to the processors. Short trips. Old Dina 600 and 800’s, trucks designed and built around the International Harvester Loadstar design from years past. We used to see some of these behemoths on American highways, but never again and slowly, they are disappearing from Mexican roads as the owners upgrade to newer equipment. The chassis of choice seems to be the International “smiley face” series of trucks with the humongous bodies attached.

Some of these types of trucks still run the highways in the south and southeastern part of the country as a supply link to small villages and Pueblos. A part of trucking history fast disappearing though.

The next day, standing at my window in my preferred hotel, City Express and watching the traffic coming up from Monterrey, I never saw the mythical “mexican junk truck”!

There were plenty of line haul rigs coming in and Coca Cola was sending their units out for the day. The long haul buses were coming and going and life went on as normal. Even the ready mix trucks in Mexico are only a couple of years old. Everywhere you looked, the only evidence that these were Mexican trucks, other than the obvious, was the shorter wheelbases and trailer configurations.

The return trip back to Nuevo Laredo was more of the same. The only junk, if you care to call it that, were the trucks waiting to unload corn at the silos or loading in the fields.

The tankers, all displaying UN haz mat placards, as appropriate and pulling, in some cases, double 40 foot tanks were out. Trucks here are limited to a maximum of 110 kph or 68 mph, others much slower. The buses, they are governed at 95 kph or 55 mph. It makes for some interesting encounters on a two lane road when you are as impatient a person as I am. But the drivers, truck and bus alike, are courteous and professional, even pulling over at times to let traffic pass. When was the last time we saw that happen in the U.S.?

This was a new flatbed or “platforma” in spanish, complete with LED lighting, all reflective material as required by FMCSA although this trailer was manufactured in Mexico by PEXMA and as part of a double unit, will probably never cross the border. Proving once again that manufacturing standards are just that, standard, across state lines and across national borders.

All types of signs in Mexico. Very similiar to those in the U.S. menaing the same thing. “Use your seatbelts” and Use Seatbelts for Security” (paraphrase), Road directional signs, no passing signs.

You know folks, the Mexican truck argument is foolish. People with a myopic agenda putting forth garbage that they want you to believe.

Truck driving is a skill. It is not a skill limited in scope to English speaking Americans, but a world wide industry. Safety is not limited to the FMCSA or DOT or English speaking American companies. It is something practiced by each and every one of us, irregardless of nationality or borders, land or sea. It has nothing to do with whether you are a union driver or a non union driver, an owner operator or a company hand. We need to remember that and get on to worrying and being proactive about things that can actually do harm to us and to our industry. Mexican trucks are not an issue!