Why are American truckers afraid?

Question

In a few weeks, Mexican drivers will begin to drive in the 48 states. Isn't this healthy in a free market place...lowering prices? What are the US drivers so angry about? They fought wars to expand freedom, right? When all nations are welcome to use America's business model, and infrastructure, the world standard of living will rise. Less income will help Americans relate to our foreign brethren. Our government is not stupid, and allowing Mexican trucking firms to compete will lower Wal-Mart prices even further. Bring 'em on!

Answer 1

If the Mexicans are so great why don't they simply fix their own country instead of coming to ours?

Added:
Consider the AMERICAN trucker. He leaves his family and spends his life on the road so he can provide for them. He pays high taxes to pave the roads he drives on and pay the wages of the highway patrol that dog him. He is watched by a company like a hawk to make sure he doesn't cheat on his logbook just because he is in a hurry to get back to his family. The company has expensive computers and tracking systems and office employees to keep everything safe and of course the company has to pay taxes and workers comp and social security. When a local charity needs help they call on the office of the company to get donations. When the poor trucker gets home to his house which of course he pays property taxes on, his wife and kids want to go out because they have been stuck at home. So he loads up the family and takes them out for a night on the town where he spends his hard earned money right in his own home town further helping keep AMERICANS employed. Of course along comes some smart young liberal politicians who reason that if you let Mexicans come up and drive the trucks they will do it cheaper, and if you let Mexican companies operate the trucks they can do it cheaper because they wont have to follow all of the guidelines that the AMERICAN companies have to follow. They reason that all of this savings will translate into lower prices for the rest of us AMERICANS. What they fail to realize is that when my neighbor loses his truck driving job and goes on welfare, then I have to carry him along with my entire family. When his company closes we all lose the taxes they had been paying. When my daughter goes out to sell her Girl Scout cookies to support her troop she will find the office door locked and a sign on it that says: Out of business. For donations go to Mexico. That is where all of our jobs went. Of course to keep the highways in good working order the government will have to raise my taxes since all of the truck driving firms have left the country. Sounds GREAT doesn't it? IDIOT!

Answer 2

These drivers are not afraid, they are concerned over their jobs. If you have a job, how would you like it, if you were let go because a Mexican will do it for 1/2 the pay? Let's say you are trying to raise a family too.

What about the trucks on the road? Are they controlled by the DOT at the same standards American trucks are?

If less income will help us relate, why not go to your boss and tell him you want to relate, and to cut your pay, or hell, tell him you'll work for free???

My guess is that you are either a high school student that just came out of an economics class or a Mexican.

You want lower wages, then how can we buy things, then the tax base erodes, then the tax rate has to increase, then that will lower the base, then higher taxes, until we spiral down the road, and then we can all relate to poverty.

I hope you will think about your opinion and look at the bigger picture and think things down the road. Our politicians have greed in their minds. What's in it for me? How much will they contribute to my war chest?

Good luck to you, I hope you don't have to relate to poverty, I don't think you'd like it. I didn't.

Answer 3

Free market? for foreigners? lowering prices? that won't help when everyone is out a job! expand freedom for who? We are losing our middle class as it is. Soon with stupid attitudes like this there will only be the very rich and the very poor, most of us in the latter. I wonder if Mexico would have the same attitude towards American drivers? Lowering wal-mart prices should not be the only goal in policies. it should be the overall well-being of the American worker.

Answer 4

This should be an easy answer I think. Yes it will lower cost, but at the cost of American truck driver jobs. They are already just barely surviving as is and introducing a cheaper waged outside competition will not even the playing field (the whole reason for free market) but it will more then likely run millions of truck drivers out of business over night. The only ones to survive will probably be the companies that have hundreds of trucks in their fleets, just the independent drivers will go broke because no one will hire them to run good; instead opting to hire the cheaper lower waged drivers in mexico.

They have a good reason to fear and yes it will lower costs for the American consumer, but it will cost the US millions of jobs for our domestic truck drivers.

Answer 5

You are right to think expanding the job market is good for the economy; accountants who had their jobs shipped off to India, for example, had to create new complex methods of selling their services, thus bettering society by becoming more efficient.

HOWEVER

Mexicans taking over American jobs legally in America represents a scary trend of our culture being taken over by our southern friends. In many parts of the country Spanish is overtaking English as the majority spoken language, and the US Government ALSO establishes English as its official language.

Answer 6

This isn't good for anybody. All it will do is lower the buying power of Americans, which will hurt the world economy.

And yes, our government IS stupid. Especially the last 7 years.

Answer 7

I'd be concerned with safety, congestion and pollution. Will these Mexican trucks be inspected for safety? Driver records check to make sure they are safe drivers?

Freeways are already clogged with semis and adding thousands of Mexican semis will make things far worse.

I was driving on the freeway next to a semi when it lost control (because he was speeding in the rain) and crashed in to the side of a hill. That was some scary sh*t.... he could have easily killed dozens of people. Imagine a Mexican driver unfamiliar with the roadways and weather......

Answer 8

Perhaps their worried about things we all should be concerned of, ... unsafe vehicles on our interstate highways going 75 MPH past you and your family in your SUV, ... drugs being shipped straight to a town near you in a trailer that's only been inspected by a corrupt Mexican official. Or perhaps they simply believe the USA already has it's own core of professional truckers, ... why should some of them be put out of work to improve the lives of foreigners?

Answer 9

What makes me mad, is that when foreigners move here, the AMERICAN government gives them grants and stuff to start their own businesses while we have soooo many poor homeless TRUE Americans living on the street. What's wrong with this picture? We need to stop giving foreigners all the aide when we have our own living on the streets! I don't care about the trucking thing,.

Answer 10

The Walton family will get richer and the poor schmucks slaving in there lousy stores will get poorer. GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!

They are afraid that Mexican companies do not have to follow the same (expensive) safety standards that US companies do therefore giving them an unfair advantage.