ADOT offers free classes to Mexican truck drivers
Possible certification could help speed border wait
The Arizona Department of Transportation has begun offering free classes on vehicle safety to Mexican truck drivers, leading to a certification which can lead to less time spent waiting to clear checks at border ports of entry.
Some classes have already been held in cities on the Arizona side of the border, including San Luis, Ariz., he said, and last week the first one leading to the certification was held across the border in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora.
“Once we complete about a day and a half worth of training, there are two exams for these guys,” Herrmann said. “One a written exam with about 65 questions, and the next is a practical exam or a field exam, where they go out and look at a truck and identify, is this a problem or is that a problem?” he said.
All 25 drivers in that class passed the exams, and will be the first to receive the International Border Inspection Qualification Certificate. This can lead to abbreviated safety inspections, providing the trucking company maintains a good record with all their vehicles.
The graduates will also be able to send photos through the WhatsApp smartphone messaging system directly to Arizona border inspectors if they’re worried about something that may or may not pass inspection. If the U.S. inspector tells them it could be a problem, it’ll be much faster and cheaper to fix it at the company’s shop, rather than being delayed at the border and having to pay the mechanics there to do the repair.
“That’s the really unique part of this,” Herrmann said.
Hermann said this program is already showing some of the results ADOT’s been hoping for, by increasing Mexican shippers’ interest in using Arizona border crossings. Hermann said that in the two months after ADOT began offering the classes in U.S. border towns, there was a 7 percent increase in traffic through San Luis, which has struggled to bring traffic to its commercial port of entry since it opened in 2010.
“We’re finding 33 percent more safety violations, even though we’re doing fewer inspections, because we’re able to focus on the trucks that haven’t gone through the program, that don’t have as good a safety record with us,” he said. This brings more trucks, and safer trucks, through Yuma County to help fuel the economy, he said.
ADOT’s next classes will be held later this month, in the Sonoran capital of Hermosillo, with additional sessions being planned in Douglas, Nogales, Son., and Culican, about 50 miles north of Mazatlan. “We’re getting, so far, more requests to attend this class than we can accommodate. The interest from the trucking community has been fantastic,” he said.
ADOT hopes to keep offering the classes as long as the demand is there, he said.
The state is also looking at making other tweaks to its border process to increase traffic at all three commercial ports, including coordinating inspections with other agencies and putting inspectors through additional training to ensure decisions are consistent between the three locations.