This little item just came across my news feed followed by a notice from Melissa at FMCSA, and boys and girls, they done slipped one past us!
FMCSA to Initiate Real-Time Tracking for Mexican and U.S. Trucks Participating in the Cross-Border Trucking Demonstration Project
Tracking system would monitor hours of service, cabotage and vehicle position
Ya’ll know what this means don’t you? They kill two or three canaries with one stone.
One of the most vocal critics of the Mexican Cross Border Project has been Joan Claybrook of Public Citizen. I smell here all over this idea. She has also been very vocal and demanding that black boxes or EOBR’s be a requirement for every truck on America’s highways. What better way to gain her grudging cooperation than to come up with this idea.
Folks, this is the black box, the EOBR or Electronic On-Board Recorder the majority of us have been against, and they appear to be using the Demonstration Project as a test bed for future rulemaking.
Be careful what you wish for people, because you may not like what it gets you. In this case, all of those opposing the Demonstration Program cite lack of oversight and accountability as the reason they oppose it. Well, this gives them that oversight and in near real time. No more worries about cabotage violations, speeding, HOS violations. They found a solution to address your concerns.
How ironic is it though that the same group demanding oversight does not want EOBR’s in their trucks? And now, this appears to be a precursor to finalizing the rules on EOBR’s if their implementation in the Demonstration Program proves their worth.
UPDATE: It appears that after I wrote and posted this article, more details were forthcoming. Qualcomm is the winner but we all still need to keep an eye on this situation as the majority of you have these units in your trucks. All that will be required is a software adjustment.
More about it on my site
I agree that the FMCSA has been very crafty here, coming up with a way to silence critics of the cross-border program, at least as far as oversight is concerned, and at the same time providing an opportunity to “prove” EOBRs.
The problem here is that EOBRs cannot prove HOS compliance any more than a paper log does. Sure, it will say where you were and when, just a receipts and bills do now, (as long as the GPS is accurate) but it cannot tell, beyond the movement of the vehicle, what the truck was doing at any given time, or who was doing it. Such a mandate will provide no more oversight than was already in place.
So, what we will end up with, then, is an inaccurate system being used to prove that the cross-border trucking program is operating up to par, whether or not it actually is. I have no doubt, at least through the pilot period, that everything will be darn near perfect, so the real agenda is proving the effectiveness of EOBRs. Of course, they will be very effective under a pilot that is guaranteed to be near perfect, and the FMCSA will have more numbers to throw at us.
I’m surprised it took them this long to come up with the idea, and it may be a very effective tool to convince the American people that both programs work well. The truth is, however, that neither one serves the best interests of our country. Such is the power of overgrown bureaucracy and administrative law.
That’s why I’m against the entire NAFTA program, not just part of it.
Yeah, that’s bad news about EOBR’s. The pilot program will prove that they’re a “success” and then we all have to have one. That’s what OOIDA and the Teamsters get for siding with the enemy.
Instead of being consistent and killing NAFTA all together, they allowed Public Citizen and those groups to make the agenda against Mexican trucks. Now that they’re getting inspected and now tracked, we’re getting the program no matter what and OOIDA and the Teamsters have nothing left to complain about because they hung their hats next to PC.
Read on brothers, read on! I just updated the article.
It isn’t the EOBR’s that Claybrook wants, but something we already have, and that Mexico already has in the majority of their rigs….. QUALCOMM!
What worries me is the idea of a national operations center to monitor the trucks. Nothing to keep them from eventually adding every truck in all three countries to it. Wanna talk about another bureaucracy? Imagine the manpower to monitor several million trucks.
Yikes! This sounds like a nightmare for you all.
Work diligently to Repeal NAFTA, the elephant in all our living rooms, which many are too blind acknowledge and who perceive only its parts. Some of these parts are the NAFTA Superhighway, open migration, Unfair trade agreements, Word Trade Organization etc. The road to the North American Union or Security and Prosperity Partnership is being laid before us to eventually merge our nation into a political system like the European Union. See http://www.jbs.org
By repealing NAFTA we will save America!
NAFTA isn’t the problem and we can’t stick our heads in the sand and become isolationists. This is a global economy, like it or not.
We need better trade negotiators to go to the table and not give away the farm
There has been more good come from NAFTA than their has bad.
As for a NAFTA superhighway, a NAU, those don’t deserve a response, especially since the authority mentioned is the JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY. Try reading the ideas and mission of the SPP and you’ll see there is nothing there about throwing out the Constitution’s of Mexico and the United States and the Charter of Canada and erasing the borders. SPP is all about communications, sharing of information, marine security and the security of all three countries in the partnership. Not a bad idea really. See http://www.spp.gov