I don’t know if mexican-registered trucks in the USA are required to have insurance with an American company-but what happens if a Mexican owned truck is involved in a fatal accident? Suppose a mexican truck plows into a line of cars at a tollbooth-and kills 12 people. Is the Mexican Govt. liable?
Just one of the interesting questions caused by NAFTA!
I don’t know if US registered trucks in Mexico are required to have insurance with a Mexican company, but what happens if a US truck is involved in a fatal accident? Suppose a US truck plows into a line of cars at a toll booth and kills 12 people. Is the US government liable?
More of General Questions subject IMO.
Definitely not, if the accident happens in the U.S. If it happens in Mexico – still no, absent a treaty provision to the contrary.
Why would the governments be liable? Wouldn’t liability be on the trucking companies?
I think you missed the man’s point. He wasn’t actually asking the question.
OK - He said it’s an interesting question raised by NAFTA. In what way does NAFTA cause that to be an interesting question?
Why does the OP think that a Mexican truck would necessarily need insurance with an American company? I can drive my car across most of Europe under my standard policy, and I’m sure there’s firms specialising in cover for international freight in North America.
In that NAFTA (together with subsequent and dependent negotiations and arrangements) makes it possible for the question to arise IRL.
Individual liability is not defferred for foreign nationals operating motor vehicles in the US. They would be required to carry insurance to legally operate in areas of the US that require such insurance. If it becomes known that a certain trucking company chooses not to they are begging to have drivers cited by US law enforcement whenever they see those trucks. Eventually the drivers in question would start getting arrested for unpaid tickets/warrants if those tickets were not resolved and they continued to operate in the same border areas.
I believe the trucking companies on both sides of the border are bound to obey the regulations of each other. Under NAFTA, Mexican trucks were supposed to have been allowed entry into the USA some years ago. The US government bowed to pressure from the US trucking industry to prevent that from happening. So much for negotiating “free” trade with the USA.
To me the most interesting part of this story is that the changes are prompted by a “special tribunal.” cite: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070901/us_nm/mexico_trucks_us_dc_1
What the hell is a “special tribunal”? I wasn’t aware of any such thing in our system of government…
Well, no, apparently not, since NAFTA was signed more than ten years ago and they’re just now allowing Mexican trucks in under the terms of a completely separate treaty. On the other hand, trucks were crossing the US-Canada border before NAFTA. The incorporation of Mexican carriers could have been held off for decades more if they’d been determined to do so.
It’s worth noting that trucking safety is something Mexico and the USA (and Canada) have been working on standardizing for years now under CVSA. This isn’t something that’s just happening out of the blue. I’d also point out that truck safety generally varies based on the company in question, not where it’s based, and is heavily dependent on the nature of the company’s business and its customers (aggregate carriers are much worse than, say, a carrier that hauls auto parts.) So there’s no reason this can’t be reasonably well controlled.
But don’t get me get in the way of the Mexican-panic.
I don’t know what other treaty you’re talking about. The dispute centers on Articles
1202 (national treatment for cross-border services) and 1203 (most-favored-nation
treatment for cross-border services) of NAFTA. In 2001, a NAFTA dispute resolution panel ruled that the US was required under NAFTA to open it roads to Mexican long-haul trucks (currently Mexican trucks are restricted to within 25 miles of the border). The US had delayed implementation due to follow-on Congressional requirements, and lawsuits.
I don’t know about commercial vehicles, but a few years back, I had to buy auto insurance from a Mexican insurance company to cross the border in my own personal vehicle. A WAG would be that Mexican owned vehicles would come under similar regulation when crossing to the US side.