As Overdrive reported in October, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had said prior to the 2011 start of the cross-border program that it would need 46 carriers to participate to produce the data needed to make conclusions about the safety and compliance of Mexican carriers.
By the program’s October conclusion, however, just 13 carriers were participating and only 15 carriers total had been admitted to the program.
The OIG says in its report it confirms FMCSA’s conclusions about the program’s data — that Mexican carriers and drivers are no less safe than U.S. carriers and drivers — but the lack of participation makes the data invalid.
“We could not determine with confidence whether the 15 carriers are representative,” the OIG report says. “Without being able to determine the representativeness of the 15 carriers, one cannot project the safety performance for the population of Mexico-domiciled carriers that may qualify for long-haul operating authority in the future.”
The OIG report also revealed data included in Overdrive’s October report, showing that 90 percent of the border crossings made by Mexican carriers participating in the program were done by two carriers. Moreover, 80 percent of inspections conducted in the program were of those two carriers, too.
Also, only 17 percent of the miles accrued in the program by Mexican carriers took place outside of the the four states bordering Mexico, the OIG notes, and FMCSA did not differentiate between mileage within the commercial border zone and outside of it.
