CTA, CRASH Oppose Open Border

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The nation’s harshest trucking critic and the largest state trucking association have joined forces to oppose plans to open four southwestern states to increased truck traffic from Mexico until a variety of safety concerns are met.

The California Trucking Association’s decision to ally itself with San Francisco-based Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways is surprising, given the harsh words that the groups have flung at each other in the past.

“It’s definitely strange bedfellows,” acknowledged CTA Vice President Warren Hoemann, who negotiated the language of a letter the organizations sent to the state’s governor.

Before joining CTA in 1997, Hoemann defended trucking as a spokesman for the Traffic Safety Alliance, an industry-funded group that champions the safety record of triple-trailer trucks.

ike Russell, spokesman for American Trucking Associations, said the group had no comment on CTA’s cooperation with CRASH.

“The border issue is common ground,” Joel Anderson, executive vice president at the CTA, said in explaining why the two groups are urging Gov. Gray Davis to oppose plans by the U.S. Department of Transportation to open California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to unlimited access by Mexican trucks.

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