Word: truck
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Almost 75% of the $100 billion in U.S. trade with Mexico is delivered by truck, and most of that cargo travels through Texas. The major route is Interstate 35, running north-south through several of the state's major cities--San Antonio, Austin and Dallas-Forth Worth. Specialized trucking firms called drayage companies haul goods in a narrow strip of U.S. territory along the border, where they exchange cargoes for transshipment to border plants or destinations deeper in America. The majority of trucks are Mexican because U.S. companies, afraid of theft and corruption, are reluctant to send their trucks into...
...SOON AS THEY SAW THE PLUME OF gas, the Mexican truck drivers leaped out of their cabs and ran for the American side of the border. Acrylic acid, a toxic chemical, had leaked from a tanker waiting in line for U.S. Customs inspection, and the liquid was vaporizing as it gathered in a noxious pool. It was "chewing holes in the pavement," says Lee Thompson, who saw it all happen in early November at the border station outside Laredo, Texas. His hazardous-materials response team, fortuitously on the scene for a training exercise, rushed to prevent the highly flammable acid...
...tanker filled with jet fuel. Texas officials recently investigated a sulfuric-acid spill in Laredo involving a 16-year-old driver with no insurance and no shipping papers. His rig had faulty brakes; nine of its 18 tires were bald. It is not uncommon to find several Mexican truck drivers carrying insurance cards with the same name and policy number...
...Administration dismisses the alarms, saying there will be no flood of Mexican trucks. Arnold Levine, director of the Department of Transportation's Office of International Transportation and Trade, acknowledges some of the problems but says the border opening "will allow truckers to improve efficiency and reduce empty loads going back. This means there will actually be a need for fewer trucks." Texas officials say Washington doesn't realize the danger, and will only get it when a truck hits a school bus. However, Texas is leery of discouraging transborder commerce with local legislation...
...comparatively minor infraction: "The recalls are aimed at GM's Northstar Engines, which everyone views as the gemstones of GM technology and possibly the best V-8 engines made in the world. They are available only in the priciest Cadillacs. Unlike the controversial gas tanks exploding in truck pickup collisions a few years ago, no deaths, personal injuries or threats to national security seem to be involved, just some emission violations...