Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/409537
Logbook 14 | Overdrive | November 2014 Navistar last month filed a motion requesting consolidation of the more than two dozen lawsuits brought against it over alleged problems with its exhaust gas recirculation-only engine line, along with other similar lawsuits the company is expecting. The Oct. 3 request was filed with a federal judicial panel on multidistrict lit- igation, according to court documents. Navistar says in the motion that it is facing 15 lawsuits in federal courts across the country and 11 suits in state courts. It also says it has received notices of intents to sue from 21 other parties. All of the lawsuits make similar allegations, Navistar says: that the company knew its 2008-13 model MaxxForce engines were defective but concealed that information from buyers. Navistar was the only major North American manufacturer to use EGR alone to try to meet 2010 emissions standards. In its Oct. 3 filing, Navistar asks that the suits be not only consolidat- ed but also transferred to a federal district court in Illinois to be heard by Judge Joan B. Gottschall. Navistar headquarters are outside of Chica- go, and most of the documents and witnesses in the cases are in Illinois, Navistar says. – James Jaillet With the Oct. 14 expiration of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Ad- ministration's cross-border trucking pilot program with Mexico, both the future of cross-border trucking and the effectiveness of the three-year test are unclear. The program fell well below the participant level federal officials said they would need to accurately gauge the safety of Mexican carriers oper- ating beyond the border zone. For those reasons, an FMCSA advi- sory committee on Oct. 28 approved a report critical of the trial. FMCSA said it is reviewing the data "with the goal of developing a path forward … while continuing to fulfill our NAFTA obligations." The agency also converted the program's 13 participating carriers to provisional or standard operating authority, allowing them to continue to operate in the United States. The move effectively expanded four of the carriers' legal long-haul operations in the United States to trucks beyond those participating in the pilot. Overall, close to 250 power units gained new long-haul authority with the move. The program officially began Oct. 14, 2011, when FMCSA granted authority to Transportes Olympic. At that time, the agency said it would need at least 4,100 inspections on 46 carriers to statistically validate any analysis and make further projections about the safety of Mexican carriers in the United States. FMCSA met its target number of inspections – recording 5,455 as of Sept. 21. But it fell short of the 46 carriers it deemed necessary, with just 13 participating at the program's end. "Few of those were in the pilot program for more than one year," noted the report from the cross-bor- der subcommittee of FMCSA's Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee. What's more, of the 54 drivers and 55 trucks authorized to operate in the United States, one carrier – Servicio de Transporte Internacional y Local – accounted for 55 percent of the inspections as of Sept. 21 (3,027), while another participant, GCC Transportes, accounted for 25 percent (1,375). The Mexican carriers operating in the United States had better safety records than the average of U.S. car- riers, even with a high inspection rate of about 18 annual inspections per truck, said Bill Quade, an FMCSA enforcement official, at the MCSAC meeting. By comparison, U.S. trucks on average receive just more than one inspection annually. The Owner-Operator Independent Cross-border questions remain Navistar seeks to consolidate engine lawsuits The International ProStar was powered by Navistar's MaxxForce engine line in the years concerning the lawsuits. (Continued on Page 81) Pilot program ends, but 13 Mexican carriers continue to operate in the U.S.