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person who has played navigator on a car trip will remember whizzing
by a tiny road sign and attempting to read it in a timely manner.
Now imagine trying to so while steering a tractor-trailer rig loaded
with gasoline amidst speeding highway traffic. You now understand
why many ordinary Americans are genuinely concerned about the Mexican
truck issue.
While the U.S. Senate was continuing to debate Mexican trucks last
Friday, I was a passenger during a drive from Maryland to Virginia
Beach. Ask yourself, as I did, what the consequences might be if
a truck driver should be unable to read the following signs which
appeared along our route:
No
Stopping
Notice to Truckers: Return Trip Tunnel Height 13' 6"
(Sign at an exit) Warning: Traffic May Be Stopped Ahead.
Reduce Speed Ahead
Tank Trucks, Vehicles with Hazardous Materials: Stop for Inspection
Now some NRO readers will say, correctly, that other countries do
not require language tests for American visitors who rent cars.
But both the roads and the laws of physics are simply more forgiving
for the driver of a 2,000-pound automobile who misses a warning
sign than they are for the driver of a 10,000-pound "big rig." The
weight of even an unloaded tractor-trailer when in motion at highway
speeds generates the kind of momentum which vastly increases the
distances required to stop safely.
Truck drivers have a dangerous job even when they are able to read
road signs written in English. Any driver error on a highway which
involves a large tractor-trailer, even if the truck driver is blameless,
can have drastic and deadly consequences.
Those who are busy fighting for more Mexican trucks on our highways
should first spare a moment to do something to ensure that all drivers,
especially all truck drivers, who travel America's roads can read
and understand English. Their constituents will thank them. And
the lives they save may someday include their own.
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