"North American" driver's license is already here???

Alright, I'm not going to claim to know much about the so-called North American Union, or even any of that NAFTA stuff, because I do not watch the news, (I don't have a TV), and I have not participated in any discussion about it here on ATS.

I ran a search for "North American driver's license" on here, and came up with nothing worth mentioning.

I work at a chemical plant in Freeport, TX. One of my responsibilities is to check driver's licenses before they are allowed in the plant. If they do not have a valid driver's license, I am not allowed to let them in. According to my boss, the Coast Guard will fine me $10,000 if I allow somebody in the plant without a valid license.

When I was first hired, I was told that due to NAFTA we would be getting drivers from Mexico. I was expected to make sure that their Mexican license was accompanied by an official sheet of paper from Homeland Security.

One day, just a couple of weeks ago, a driver came to me with a driver's license that was in Spanish. I turned to look at the sheet of paper that had been on the wall that I used to see what I needed to verify the foreign driver's license, and it was gone.

I asked the driver for the Homeland Security sheet. He claimed he did not have one, but handed me a ticket given to him by the Texas Department of Transportation. He had been pulled over, given a ticket for some minor violation with his HAZMAT trailer, and was allowed to continue.

He explained to me that the driver's license was valid in Mexico, the United States, and Canada. All I could read on the license were the words "department", "transportation", and "communication", all in Spanish.

I called my supervisor, who claimed that we have NEVER needed a Homeland Security sheet to accompany foreign driver's licenses to allow them in the plant, which I know to be false, but may be due to the fact that my supervisor is an idiot.

Phone calls were made, and it was decided by the higher echelon employees of the chemical plant that his driver's license was, indeed, a valid one.

A driver's license that is considered valid for Commercial Driver's in all three North American countries? Is this new? Is this something to do with the North American Union or NAFTA or something? This was not something that had been going on for very long, because I hired on in May and at that time this was not acceptable. At the time I was hired and trained, I was taught that I should not allow a person with a foreign license that is not accompanied by a Homeland Security document into the plant. It was only a few weeks ago that this was deemed acceptable. Am I missing something here? Has there always been a license such as this or is this a precursor to the North American Union?

How is it that this thread has been flagged twice, yet has yet to get a single reply? I'm truly curious about what other ATS'ers have to say about this, even if they are just going to tell me that this North American CDL has been around awhile and is nothing new.

All I know is after all I've been hearing about the North American Union, when this man told me his license was good in all the US, Canada, and Mexico, there was a definite chord struck within me.

I suppose if nobody's going to reply I will have to spend a couple hours on Google trying to find something about it. So far I've only found a website which talks about a bill passed in Kentucky for Mexican CDL's to be accepted.

See here

I'm in Texas, so this has nothing to do with my specific situation anyway.

I've yet to find anything about this North American CDL I was told to accept, and which was obviously accepted by a Texas State Trooper. I also have not found anything on a "Department of Transportation and Communication", though those words were all in Spanish on the license, so I assume I have to run a search for them in Spanish, which is out of the question since I don't know very much.

I find this very disturbing, and wish somebody could shed some light on the situation.

[edit on 30/7/07 by an3rkist]

hi an3rkist,

Im not 100% per cent sure about the US, but here in Australia you can drive for upto three months on a drivers license from another country. Im pretty sure this would be true for the US as well, which would explain why the Texas state trooper allowed the driver to continue after issuing the ticket.

As for why the procedures have been changed at the chemical plant where you work, i have no idea. Do you just check the licenses or do you take details from the people entering?

CT

Edited for spelling

[edit on 2/8/2007 by Conspiracy Theorist]

Same with a drivers license from Puerto Rico and Canada. They are both valid in the US for a certain amount of time. as for the homeland security issue. I think it would have to do with the slowing rate of exports and imports due to 9/11.

I'm not sure about the North American CDL, but I do currently have a Class A CDL from the State of Pennsylvania, fully endorsed with all the bells and whistles. I can legally drive anywhere in the US and Canada. It is a valid license to cross borders with. US to Canada shipments are delivered without problems (My uncle currently delivers to Canada quite often from the US with a Class B CDL issued from New York State.)

The company that I previous worked for (back in 1998) didn't have us to go across to Mexico, but had us drop ship at the border to someone else who took the deliveries into Mexico. Also, my husband had a DUI on his record, so he can never legally drive in Canada to make CDL deliveries, so that wasn't something we did either.

SNIP* Even if the border opens to Mexican trucks, American truckers won't be allowed to enter Mexico. That's because Mexican labor groups and the Mexican federal transportation agency have pressured President Vincente Fox to bar American trucks.

But the most serious concern should be the relative ease of getting a Commercial Driver's License (CDL) in Mexico.

"OOIDA is less than confident in the security of the Mexican system to issue CDLs," Spencer said. "Beyond whether or not a Mexican CDL indicates whether a driver is qualified to drive a truck, we understand that it is relatively easy to purchase a Mexican CDL if you know the right people or have enough money."

www.ooida.com...

Snip* Safety is not the only challenge Mexican trucks and drivers pose to the United States. OOIDA is concerned that neither the Immigration and Naturalization Service nor Customs Service are prepared to oversee the compliance by Mexican drivers and trucks with laws enforced by those agencies.

Under NAFTA, a Mexican truck can only deliver a cross-border shipment to a destination in the United States, pick up another shipment for return to Mexico, or drive through the United States on the way to Canada. We have no system in place to ensure they adhere to these restrictions.

www.ooida.com...

I haven't seen anything at all about the North American CDL, and have done some extensive searching on this subject for you. All I have really found is a bunch of NAFTA information, CA and KY issues about the Mexican CDL holders not just making their deliveries, but picking up shipments within the States and delivering to other States, which is against NAFTA Rules.

The only thing I could think of, would be that this Company that delivers to you are trying to be one of the first to "clean up" their act in Mexico and follow the NAFTA guidelines that us US truckers have to abide by.

www.theiacp.org...
The link above is the brochure in pdf version for FMCSA rules and requirements. They do give out special stickers for completing their courses, so maybe they do also give them a valid license for identification purposes. This brochure is quite interesting reading and was published in June of 2007.

I hope this helped you out a bit in your quest for these answers.