Very, very enlightening article by Gary Galles at the Mises Institute: "The Mexican Truch Miasma:"
Of particular note in this protracted controversy is how those trying to ward off trucking competition and their political allies used the same deliberately misleading basis for two different, but equally bogus claims, dramatically delaying the benefits that a free market would provide consumers.
That misleading basis was pointing to unsafe and dirty trucks currently crossing the border at undermanned border crossings as proof that it would be too risky to let Mexican trucks beyond the border regions of the U.S. However, those trucks have been unusually unsafe and dirty primarily because of current U.S. policy. Without current border restrictions, the Mexican trucks that would enter the U.S. would be far safer and far cleaner.
Current border trucking restrictions for shipments entering the U.S. require a costly three-truck delivery dance. Since the cargoes are required to be transferred to an American truck within a few miles of the border, shipments involve a long-haul Mexican truck, then a transfer on their side of the border to a drayage truck, which hauls the shipment across the border, and then another transfer to an American long-haul truck.
Since the drayage trucks involved spend much of their time idling in line to cross the border, and then immediately offload to other trucks, they are the oldest, most run-down and polluting trucks in use, which dramatically increase border pollution. And they make up a large proportion of border crossings by Mexican trucks, providing horror-story images which American protectionists have used and reused to maintain their insulation from Mexican truck competition.
According to an article in the Texas International Law Journal, "drayage haulers haul freight between import lots on both sides of the border. Most drayage haulers are years or even decades old. Many lack basic vehicle features like lights, reflectors, good tires, or brakes, or even safety windows. Their trips only cover the length of an international bridge, so they are not prepared for DOT inspection."
Just like other producers, Mexican trucking companies don't use their best equipment in a way that makes it least valuable. So they don't have their newest trucks wasting time idling at a border checkpoint. They use them where they are most valuable, on long trips where the better fuel economy (and lower pollution) of newer trucks was most beneficial. The use their least valuable, worst mileage, worst polluting, worse shape, least safe vehicles to cross the border, where they fail inspections at much higher rates than long haul trucks would without the border restrictions. Therefore, they are not a sample of the trucks that would operate in the United States if restrictions were lifted.
Government policy has led to the dregs of the Mexican trucking fleet crossing the border, and thus to higher inspection failure rates for Mexican trucks (37% of Mexican trucks inspected failed, versus 24% for American trucks in 2000). That was then played as the safety "trump card" to keep those trucks out of the country. That would not be the case, however, in the absence of America's shipping restrictions and undermanned inspection stations.
The emphases in the above quote are mine.
I live on the Mexican border (El Paso, Texas). Many, many drivers of private vehicles don't have driver's licenses, don't maintain auto insurance, and don't have their vehicles inspected in accordance with Texas state law. I approve, frankly, since those laws are ridiculously invalid--but it is the law that such niceties be observed. And yet they are on Texas streets and highways every day, thousands of them. Here we have an instance in which the owners of (Mexican) commercial drayage vehicles are trying to observe the (U.S.) law and survive in business at the same time, and they're being penalized for their efforts.
Ridiculous.